6x5
by Stitchpunk
Summary: <html><head></head>"I think I made a new friend," Five said as he loaded an arrow into the bolt channel. "Oh? Who?" "Six." There was a silence. He looked up and found Two smiling knowingly at him. -Reincarnated, they must find the secret of their past helped by 6's visions.</html>
1. That Boy

In Which Something Dawns On Five

There was a kid in art class that never left. As far as Five knew, anyway. He was always there first, and always stayed last, and was never seen anywhere else in the school. All he did was draw and paint. It was constant.

Five knew he was one of the Numbered Children. There had been nine of them, all found when they were babies down in the valley, some in baskets and some in blankets. The police had never caught whoever had left them, but it was generally assumed it was because of a cult. They were divided up and put into existing households in the town, some with full families and some with single adults.

Five had looked into the others over the last summer. He knew from talking to a couple of the older siblings that the art class kid, Six, had been put in with a full family of six in a house barely big enough for four. He knew from talking to Nine himself that he had been put into a house with a mother and two sisters, and from talking to Seven herself that she'd been put in with a father and three older brothers.

Two had always been Five's best friend. They lived right next door to each other. They'd built a multi-story tree house together when they were just eight years old. Two was a strange case. Everyone liked him but his self-proclaimed second-closest friend. One was best friends with Eight, the resident pothead, which everyone assumed was because Eight was easily controlled. But One would always find time to hang out with Two, trying to order him around and yelling at him. It was lucky for him that Two was very good-natured, and generally humored him.

Then there were Three and Four. Twins. No one was ever sure which was which, or even if they were girls, boys, or one of both. They'd use both the boys' and girls' bathrooms and hadn't been seen apart...well, _ever_. But you could usually find them with Seven, who was generally with Nine.

But back to Six. He was by far the strangest case of all. He had unhealthily pale skin and hair that was cropped short in a way that suggested he didn't like to stop moving long enough for someone to take a pair of scissors to his head. And he always wore the same overlarge black- and white-striped, long-sleeved shirt and matching baggy pants with a pair of military boots.

Five had gotten detention for building a weapon in shop class, which the teacher had given him permission to do, but apparently he hadn't told the principal, who had chosen the day of showing their finished projects to sit in on the class. Because he'd had permission, he hadn't been expelled. Because everyone in the school knew you couldn't have weapons on campus, he'd gotten detention. Two had offered to take the crossbow home with him so Five wouldn't have to throw it away since he couldn't leave school grounds until his detention was over and he couldn't keep the weapon with him.

So now he was heading over to the art classroom to help clean it up. They'd been making tie-dye everything for the past week and the whole place was a brownish rainbow, inky mess. It had been a half-hour since classes ended. He'd spent the last two hours in a meeting with the principal, the shop teacher, and his adoptive parents. He'd never gotten used to his own family, despite never having lived any other way. His mother's temper could last until the cows came home while his father's would snap like a toothpick if he forgot to do his homework once every four years. He'd never been hit, but the yelling and pushing was scary enough. He was just glad it never left a mark.

He walked into the art room and found that the teacher was waiting for him with a mop and bucket. Looking past her, Five saw Six was still drawing away in the background, his face, hands, shirt, and pants all covered in charcoal and ink smudges.

"Five? Are you going to come inside?" the art teacher, Ms. Hunny, asked with a smile.

"Y-yes! Sorry!" Five nodded, hurrying forward to take the mop handle from her as he scooted the bucket toward himself.

"All I want you to do is clean the floors and tables. Anything you need to move, you can put over by my desk. The sponges are by the sink, and the soap is in the cupboard if you need to refill the bucket. I'm going to go make some copies for the class. Do you think you can handle it while I'm gone?" she asked sincerely.

Five got the feeling that she would actually do the cleaning for him if he just asked her to. She liked him. He shook himself out of his imagination and nodded with a nervous smile. "I-I'm-I'll be fine," he said and she smiled at him again before walking over to the door.

She turned before she left. "Six, I have to go to the copier for a few minutes, I'll be right back," she called out and waved to the pinstriped boy before grabbing a folder from the desk by the entrance and leaving.

After she'd already turned her back, Six looked up and waved, his smile falling when he realized she was already gone. He looked around the room when he heard the mop dunk into the bucket despite Ms. Hunny being gone and jumped when he caught himself alone in the room with another student. Feeling the need to use his hand to wave to someone, he turned to the student.

"Hi-! Hi..." Six seemed to moan in greeting.

Five paused in his work and looked up, returning the slow wave. "Hi. My name is Five," he greeted, never having introduced himself despite having been in the same schools as Six since daycare.

"Six. That's yours," Six said, pointing out a drawing hanging above the door. Every year, Ms. Hunny would choose her favorite artworks and ask if she could keep them until summer. Most everyone said yes. No one knew how she chose them, because honestly, some weren't very good at all, even according to their artists, but she must have seen something in them.

"Y-yeah," Five confirmed awkwardly.

"I like it," Six smiled. "I like the tree."

Five smiled, partly because he'd gotten a compliment, and partly because of amusement. The whole picture was a tree. "Thank you. It's, uh, it's a tree outside my house," he elaborated as he mopped.

"I know," Six said and Five paused, looking up at him with an eyebrow raised.

"You know?" he asked.

"When you look at it...you can tell you're looking out a window. Sitting in the warm room with dark pink walls. And it was raining. And across the street is a yellow house. You can tell from in your mind," Six told him, eyes wide. He started drawing again.

"I-...okay," Five said to Six's back. He'd considered asking how he could tell all that, before assuming Six had just walked past when he'd been drawing it and seen him in the window. He went back to mopping.

"Can I have it?" Six spoke up again what must have been fifteen minutes later.

"Who, me?" Five asked who he was talking to, looking around to see if someone else was in the room. They were still alone.

"Can I have it? At the end?" Six repeated, pointing at the tree again.

"When she takes it down at the end of the year? Yeah, you can have it," Five nodded as he walked over and grabbed a yellow sponge from the sink so he could scrub the tables. He was nowhere near done with the floor, but his arms were starting to hurt.

"Darn it!" came the teacher's voice suddenly from behind him.

Five hadn't even noticed her enter the room again and neither had Six judging from how he'd startled, grabbed his necklace, and started staring at his drawing very intently as if he hadn't just been talking to the other student. Five turned, sponge in hand, and was about to ask what was wrong.

"Every year I use the ink and every year I forget how to get it off without it leaving shadows!" she exclaimed, standing over the five foot area Five had spent the last fifteen minutes scrubbing at.

There was another loud noise behind Five, a crash this time. Six was halfway inside the cupboard under the sink, shoving bottles out of it all over the floor. They rolled all over the classroom as he shuffled out of the space with an armful of bottles and ran over to the table, setting them down as they spilled out of his arms.

"Oh, that's right... Thank you, Six," Ms. Hunny said in a strange voice as she patted the sickly-looking boy on the head, ruffling his messy hair, and gesturing Five over again. "Empty about a fourth of this into the bucket, would you?" she instructed, the unreadable sort of unease gone, and handed him a bottle of isopropyl alcohol.

He nodded and did so as she went back to her desk.

"Six, you need to pick up those bottles before we go home," she said in a tone that made something suddenly dawn on Five. Ms. Hunny was Six's mother. That was why he stayed in the art room all day.

That night, Five stood in front of the mirror for a long time. When he'd gotten home, he'd spent a whole hour being yelled at by his dad before he got sent to bed without dinner, supposedly for not coming straight home. He'd gone to Two's house first to get something to eat, knowing when he got home that that was exactly what he'd be in for no matter what.

His father had played the eye card. He'd said that if he ever saw that crossbow in his house, he was going to shoot it right through the one eye Five had left. He was often standoffish or biting, but he'd been genuinely angry this time and had gone past his usual passive-aggressive pushing every time he walked by Five to actively insult him.

Staring into the mirror, Five took the glue bottle out of his pocket and set it on the bathroom counter. He then carefully began peeling the tan patch he kept glued over his eye off. It stuck to the skin enough to pull it up, but not enough to hurt. The lid over his eye socket was surprisingly smooth, with a single X of scar tissue from where his eyeball had been gouged out when he was a baby, before they'd all been discovered in the valley. There were dots along the edges of the X where the skin had been sewn shut. The police had told him when he'd gotten older and he asked, that it had been taken out with medical precision and then his eyelid had been slit with a scalpel and sewn shut, and it would have taken a couple weeks at least to heal, but it had been taken very good care of over that time. They thought it was probably for some sort of cult ritual.

One had speculated that some crazed member had probably eaten it one day when Two had taken him along to the field with them-the one they'd been discovered in-to see if it was still there. They hadn't been able to find it.

Even though Five was well known enough that no one really made fun of him anymore, his missing eye was still a sore spot for him, and one his adoptive father still liked to pick on.

With a heavy sigh, he rinsed the glue off his patch and hung it on the mirror with a clip to dry so he could wear it the next day.

As he got in bed, his thoughts turned to Six. He'd told him he could have that tree drawing. It was all good; he could always draw another. He'd been drawing blueprints with Two ever since they were small enough to use the big crayons, and he'd gotten rather good at the art. He could draw just about anything now, though not as well as Two could. Two could do anything, and he could do it all perfectly. While Five still got made fun of for his eye sometimes, Two never got teased for his alopecia and weakened body. Everyone loved him. They knew Five, but they were all friends with Two. Five would have been jealous, but the amount of attention Two got would have made him nervous, so it was just as well that people mainly ignored him.

It was on that thought that he fell asleep.

The next day in class, Six was ignoring everyone as per usual, but after school, during detention, he spoke to Five again.

"Yours?" he asked, walking up while Five was mopping again, the two of them alone in the room.

"Mine?" Five asked.

"Yours. Can I see yours?" Six requested, pointing to the board in the front of the class with the picture they had been supposed to copy with their eyes closed.

"Oh! Y-yeah, sure," Five nodded, propping the mop up against the table and going to his backpack by the wall. He pulled his paper out and handed it to Six, not minding the smudges the other's fingers left all over the paper.

Instead of commenting on it, Six promptly turned around and took the paper back to the table he worked at in the corner. After watching him for a moment, Five turned and went back to the mop and began cleaning again. He didn't get his picture back. He didn't ask for it.

The day after was the same in class, but the art classroom was clean so he was sent to the library for detention to reorganize the books. About a half hour into the punishment, Six came bounding into the room with a huge piece of paper and a grin to match.

"Hi!" he greeted enthusiastically. "You didn't come to my classroom today!"

"No, it was clean already," Five explained.

With that, Six laid his paper out on the table and pulled some black pencils out of his pocket, some of them falling to the floor. He slammed the ones he hadn't dropped onto the table, sat on his feet on the firmly padded bench rather than sitting on its cushion, and began drawing again.

Five watched him for a few moments before going back to alphabetizing the books.

"I have to go now," Five announced an hour later. He was halfway through F.

Six didn't reply.

Five turned on his heel halfway in the direction of the door, watched for a few more seconds, nodded to himself, and left.

The next day was much the same, but Six was already in the library drawing when he got there. Five began organizing the books where he'd left off.

"There you are!" came Ms. Hunny's voice about a half hour later. She sounded like she was smiling. Five looked over and found her standing with her hands on her hips behind Six. She bent over and looked at his drawing before heaving a deep sigh. "Don't you ever want to draw something different?" she asked.

"I do," Six replied.

"I meant something not...like that. You know what I mean," she sighed again.

"You said, 'Draw what you see,'" Six quoted to her words from the art class.

She pursed her lips and stood straight again. "Hello, Five!" she greeted with a wide smile. "I've been missing you in my classroom. I guess your detention has one more day to go, right? And then you're a free man again," she said brightly.

"That's right," Five said with a shaky smile.

"Well, I'll let you get back to your work," she said with a nod before patting Six's shoulder and leaving the library.

He left the same way as he did yesterday, only this time he remembered when Ms. Hunny left the first time. He stopped just outside the door and turned back. Six turned in his chair about thirty seconds later and waved at him. With a smile, he waved back, and left.

The last day of his detention, he was told to go to the cafeteria at the end of the day. Before going, since he'd been told after art class, he packed his bag and headed to the library.

"Six?" he called out. There was silence. He walked in and found the boy drawing at his usual table. "Six, I'm going to go clean the cafeteria," he said. No response. He left and was halfway down the hall when he heard someone running after him, the wooden tinkle of pencils falling sounding between the beats of the feet.

"Hi," Six greeted breathlessly, walking along beside him. Five turned on his heel and began walking back toward the library.

"You don't wanna keep these?" he asked, picking up a pencil.

Six looked at it before his eyes went wide and he patted his pocket and realized all his pencils were gone. They picked up the rest of the sticks together before starting back toward the cafeteria.

When they got there, Six set up at a table and drew while Five cleared all the garbage away and mopped the floor. This time, before he walked out, he waited until Six noticed he was leaving before he even went to the door. The wide eyes and grin that met him when Six realized he hadn't walked out without him were enough to make the wasted time worth it. He waited for Six to collect his things and walked him back to the art room.

"See ya Monday," Five said with a wave and a nervous smile.

"See ya Monday," Six repeated with the same wave and a grin.

Five spent the weekend, as usual, with Two, but he sort of wished he'd invited Six to join them. Then again, Six never spoke to him in class. Five wondered if it was because he was shy. Or maybe he didn't want to be seen talking to Five. Well, no. He never spoke to anyone else, either. Although, he never saw him with other people around outside that one period a day. Maybe he just wasn't friends with anyone in Five's class. Because Five couldn't be his only friend, could he? Were they friends? They'd said a total of about a dozen sentences to each other. So, then...they weren't friends. Yet. Five would fix that. With a worried sigh, he hoped he wasn't that idiot that hung out with people who didn't like him, oblivious to everything around him and their laughter behind his back.

Monday rolled around and Six ignored him in class, not that Five made any effort to talk to him either. After school, he had no detention, but he went to the art room anyway. As expected, when he walked in, Six was standing in the corner scribbling something on a large piece of paper.

"H-hey," he greeted as he walked in the open doorway.

"Hello, Five! I thought your detention was over last week! Did you get in trouble again already?" Ms. Hunny asked in a teasing tone.

"N-no. I just...wanted to say hi to Six before I left," Five explained nervously, hoping he hadn't made a big mistake.

"Oh! Go right ahead. I'm sure he'll be happy to see you," she smiled after a moment and gestured him over as if Six couldn't hear them.

Five nodded. For all he knew, Six couldn't hear them. Maybe he was ignoring them. "Hi," he greeted as he walked back into the corner.

Six continued drawing for a long moment before looking up and acknowledging his presence. "I thought-... Are you in trouble again?" he asked quietly with a surreptitious glance at his mother.

"No, I just thought I'd say hi before I went home," Five repeated.

Six stared at him blankly before a small smile creeped over his face. "Oh," he said simply, but visibly happily.

"Wh-what're you drawing?" Five asked, instinctively speaking just above a whisper since Six was doing it, directing attention away from himself by pointing at the sheet on the table.

Six grinned even wider at him before trying to suppress his grin and looking down at his paper. "This is...a thing," he said, his words sounding excited.

"A thing," Five repeated. "What kind of thing?" he asked. On the paper was what looked like a mutant robot spider.

"It's a beast. And it destroyed the world. A long time ago. Or maybe not yet," Six explained as best he could.

"Oh." Five paused. "How?"

"It uses the thing! It puts the thing on its part and steals your soul! Here-" He scrambled through some pages underneath the drawing of the beast and pulled about the fifth one out, laying it on top. "This is it. It's really small in real life, though. And me and you and all the rest, we stopped it! Or we will. It's hard to tell sometimes," Six said with a grin, forgetting about keeping his voice down.

"I-...I see. I think. How did we stop it?" Five asked, going along with whatever fantasy Six had created in his head. He couldn't help it. It all seemed sort of..._familiar_.

"I think it's time for Five to go home for today. You two can visit again tomorrow, okay?" Ms. Hunny said in a tense voice. Five looked over at her guiltily before picking his bag up from where he'd dropped it on the floor.

"Sorry. I'll see you tomorrow, okay, Six?" Five said with a wave. Six smiled at him and waved back as he left, before flipping through his pages and going back to drawing.

That day, Five spent the whole afternoon in the woods with Two. They'd set up a target on a tree at the edge of a clearing and they were using Two's arrows and the crossbow Five had made in shop.

"I think I made a new friend," Five said as he loaded an arrow into the bolt channel.

"Oh? Who?" Two asked, collecting the other arrows from the tree.

"Six," Five replied. There was a silence. He looked up and found Two smiling knowingly at him. "What?" he asked.

Two shrugged. "I always liked Six. I never really talked with him though. He was always busy," he related. "How did you get him to talk to you?"

"I didn't. He just...did. In detention one day," Five explained.

"Hm. So, about that cannon we were talking about building..." Two started, and that was that. Comfortable. Not prying. But shared.


	2. Some Trip

The next day, Six wasn't in class. After school, Five headed to the art room again. He peeked his head in and looked around. Six wasn't there still.

"Hello," Ms. Hunny greeted.

Five jumped. "Uh! Hi," he replied. "Is Six sick?" he asked.

"He had to stay home today," Ms. Hunny told him.

"Oh. Uhm. Can I go visit him?" Five asked. He then realized that he'd only assumed the teacher was Six's adoptive mother. It had never been confirmed.

"I'm not so sure that's such a good idea..." Ms. Hunny said uncomfortably.

"Oh. I-. Okay." Five turned away and walked out before changing his mind and walking back to the entrance. "Wh-why?"

Ms. Hunny didn't answer him for a long time, looking like she was considering something. "You know what? Maybe I'm just-...hm. Maybe it'd be okay. Were you going to go over now?" she asked.

"Well, uhm, if you told me where you guys live, I was," Five nodded nervously, moving from peeking around the doorway into the room a few feet.

"I-..." She seemed to consider this again. "All right. We live in the neighborhood that way," she said and pointed out the window Six usually stood near. "We're the fifth house to the left of the entrance sign, number 2450," she told him. "There should be someone to let you in if you ring the bell."

"...A'right. Uhm. Thanks. See you later, Ms. Hunny," he said and left again.

It only took him twenty minutes to walk to the house she'd given him directions to. As he was told, he rang the doorbell. A blonde teen younger than him opened the door.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Uhm. I-I'm Five. Is this where Six lives?" Five asked nervously.

"Yeah. Come on in," the girl said and stepped back so he could enter, closing the door behind him. "So you're the reason he freaked out yesterday," she said provocatively, but didn't go on. They started up a stairway.

"Uhm. He freaked out?" Five asked.

"Yeah. He would _not _shut _up_ about those stupid monsters he hallucinates all the time because apparently someone asked about them at school. Luckily my mom sedated him so we could all sleep at, like, ten freakin' pm. And then he wakes us all up at four, going on and on about these stupid monsters. My mom's, like, if he didn't shut up, he couldn't go to school. So he just _freaks_, y'know? And she ended up forcing another pill down his throat and sending him back to bed. Actually, it's a good thing you're here. You can keep him awake so he'll actually sleep tonight," she elaborated in an annoyed tone, finishing as they topped a second staircase.

Five hoped she was just overtired and not usually that cranky. "I see," he said as they stopped in the middle of the hall. He looked around. There were no doors right where they were.

"His room is up there. You can head on up," the girl said, pointing to the ceiling before jumping up and punching it. There was a trap door. She left.

Five looked up again and wondered if coming over was a good idea. Sighing, he reached up without making a decision and pulled on the string that lowered yet another set of stairs. He walked up and stepped into the room. "Six?" he called out softly, almost in a whisper. Suddenly someone ran past him and the stairs were slammed down again.

"Stay, please!" was all he heard. With a raised eyebrow, he watched as the stairs rose again and let his backpack fall off his shoulder onto the floor with a thud. With a nervous shudder, he looked around the room. The ceiling was arched so the only place you could stand completely straight was along the middle. Everything but the floor and the windows at either end of the attic was pasted over with black and white pictures, mostly of the same few things. He saw that, above the mattress-which was the only piece of furniture in the place besides a dresser, without even a bed frame-was the drawing he'd unknowingly given to Six amid the ocean of artwork around it.

The stairs dropping again made him jump and Six peeked his head over the edge of the floor before walking the rest of the way up.

"Hi," Six greeted.

"Hi," Five replied. "You weren't in school today," he said.

"No..." Six nodded and then shook his head, looking sideways around the room and ducking his chin a little. He was fiddling with something hanging around his neck the same way he'd done at school but less protectively.

Five stared and tried to see what it was. It was a skeleton key. "What's that go to?" he asked.

"My door," Six told him, pointing to the stairs. "And something else."

Five nodded but didn't ask what and looked around. "I like your wallpaper," he commented.

"It's not! I drew it!" Six exclaimed seriously.

Five smiled. "I know. It was a joke," he explained.

Six paused. "Oh. Heh," he smiled. "Do you...have to leave?" he asked nervously.

"No. I could. Why?" Five asked, wondering if Six wanted him to.

"No. Wanna see my stuff?" Six offered, quickly walking over to the pile of art supplies in the corner between the dresser and the bed. That was obviously the side of the room he spent the most time in, because the area on the opposite side of the door was completely empty.

"Sure," Five nodded as he followed.

Six pulled out a large wooden box and opened it. "You use these ones," he instructed, pointing to the box before digging some paper out and pushing it over in front of Five.

"Okay," Five nodded, letting go of the bag he'd dragged over and sitting down across from Six, who had pulled an ink stick out and was busy rubbing it into some water. Five sat still for a moment, wondering what he should draw. Finally, long after Six had begun finger-painting with the ink, he decided he should start the blueprints for that cannon.

"What is it?" Six asked some time later and Five jumped. He'd been so absorbed by the drawing that he'd forgotten where he was.

"It's a cannon. I'm going to build it with Two," Five replied. "You can help, if you want," he offered.

"Watch. Watch! I'll watch," Six nodded with a smile. With a flourish, he spun his drawing around and gestured to it.

"It's you!" he grinned. "See your eye?"

"I do..." Five nodded distractedly as he examined the unshaded sketch of himself as some sort of ragdoll. Something clicked in the back of his mind, but he wasn't sure what.

Six smiled at him again and turned the drawing back to himself so he could finish it.

Five only realized it was getting dark when he began to struggle to see his blueprint. Looking up at the window, he realized the sun was down already. He had maybe fifteen minutes before nightfall.

"I should go home," he said as he began putting the cap back on his blue marker.

"Tomorrow?" Six asked.

"If you come to school," Five nodded, standing up and heaving his bag onto his shoulder again. "See ya, Six."

"See ya," Six repeated and went back to drawing.

Five headed home, his exit from the house unnoticed by anyone else.

That night, as Five fell asleep, he thought of that drawing. When he woke up, he realized that, for the first time since he could remember, he had actually dreamed. And he now knew what it felt like to be mechanical.

The next day, just as Five had hoped, Six was indeed in school. He still didn't talk to him in class, but that was expected by that point.

"You wanna go get supplies for that cannon today?" Two asked at the end of their last period, having looked over the blueprint and tweaked it during their lunch period.

"Sure. I told Six he could come with us if he wanted," Five nodded.

"Oh? He knows how to build things?" Two asked, somewhat surprised. He'd never seen the boy do anything but draw.

"Well, he said he wanted to just watch us," Five told him.

"Oh. Well, let's go get him so we can get started," Two said as he swung his backpack onto his back and set off for the door.

"Hello again, Five!" Ms. Hunny greeted with a warm smile as they entered the art room. Five wondered if she'd been thinking he would wind Six up if he went to visit him yesterday. "And Two!"

"Hi, Ms. Hunny. We're here to steal Six away for the day," Two smiled so wide his eyes closed as he waved.

"Oh? Where are you going?" the teacher asked, sounding the tiniest bit like she was going to say no, as Five went over to tell Six he was there.

"The construction shop on Fifth. Me and Five are building a cannon next. Six said he wanted to tag along," Two explained and she started looking nervous again.

"A cannon?" she asked.

"Oh, don't worry. We have a ton of experience, and we aren't expecting to finish it until the weekend at least. We won't blow your kid up; I guarantee it," Two laughed.

"I see," Ms. Hunny smiled back but with a twitch. "Well, what else have you two built? Besides the whole crossbow fiasco," she asked.

"A telescope, a tree house, the dining room in my house, a candle-hat, a cat-powered noria, a half a dozen computers...you know. The usual," Two told her, only gloating a little, and leaving out the weapons. He glanced over to see if Five and Six were almost ready and found Six packing his things into a bag.

"Well, that sounds fun. Have a good time, you three!" Ms. Hunny smiled, covering her hesitance, and waved as the boys headed out the door.

"See you tomorrow, Ms. Hunny!" Two called over his shoulder, waving back at her.

They were halfway to the store when Six stopped walking suddenly. Five paused mid-sentence in his conversation and backtracked to the pale boy.

"Six?" he asked. No response. Six was muttering something to himself and his eyes were flickering back and forth as if he were watching something or reading in fast motion.

"Six?" Two tried. The boy snapped out of it just as suddenly.

"A robot!" he exclaimed, a terrified look in his eyes. "A robot!"

"What robot?" Five asked, his worry multiplying.

"A robot that builds other robots!" Six said and a nauseating shudder ran through Five.

He looked over and saw Two with a sour expression on his face and knew he'd had the same feeling. "Er, why don't we put off the inventing for an hour and go get some ice cream first?" he suggested. Anything to get rid of the horrible guilty feeling he had in the pit of his stomach for some reason.

"Y-yes," Two nodded.

Six watched them with a worried expression, but it was easy to tell that theirs was not the reaction he'd been expecting. A small smile came over him as he followed them into the ice cream shop he had stopped in front of.

Two paid for everyone's treat. Six didn't even have a wallet on him and Five didn't get an allowance at all. With him getting a hundred dollars a month, he figured it was only fair that he pay for these little outings and the supplies they used in their inventions. There wasn't anything he would spend it all on otherwise.


	3. Those Visions

Six Months Later...

"Would you sit still for five minutes?" Maria asked yet again, her voice sounding yet more strained from holding the handle of the comb in her teeth as she repositioned Six's head for the umpteenth time. She grabbed the comb quickly and was just about to snip about an inch of hair from just above his ear when he took off with a strangled scream of Five's name and ran out the door.

"Six! Six, come he-Oh god," she lost her breath when she caught sight of the scissors in her hand. "_Six_! _**Six**_!" she screamed and ran after him, the blood-dripping scissors tangled on her knuckles.

He'd seen it. Was it too late? It couldn't be. Five. Five was dying. He'd seen him. And it wasn't from the other life. It was from this one. And Six couldn't be a hundred percent on this, but he was pretty sure that he'd been wearing the same clothes he'd had on earlier that day.

The scene was set in Five's living room, just inside from the open mudroom. Five had done something in class that his father had heard about in the supermarket that day from one of the teachers. Two had been talking back or something of equal defiance in math and Five had defended him-not anything bad.

Six had watched Five flinch away at every syllable that heightened in volume, and he'd stepped back far enough to accidentally kick a small table against the wall when his father took a menacing step toward him, invading his personal space. When the man had finished, he'd pushed Five away from himself and walked away to who knows where. The vision had focused on Five, who had tried to step back when he was pushed to regain his balance, but had tripped on the table again. Six had watched him fall, taking the table down with him. The edge of its wooden top had slammed into the back of Five's head as his skull caromed off the floor, the weight of the table pushing him down and to the side a little. His eye had closed and the vision had ended, fading into the present.

As he ran down the dark, wet street, Six vaguely registered someone calling his name from behind him, the sound of running footsteps following him. His head hurt from the adrenaline rushing through his veins and suddenly he was at Five's door. Without knocking, he slammed the screen door open and scrambled his way into the house.

All he could think was,_ thank god, he's not dead yet _before he saw the man shove Five back into the table. There was nothing he could do. He'd gotten there in time and he'd still been unable to help.

"Five!" he screamed and saw the man running over to the teen's prone body just as he did, both of them falling to their knees next to Five. The footsteps from outside came to a halt behind him and he heard his mom gasp.

"Five, are you all right? Five! Wake up! Oh, god. I didn't mean to. God. Darlene! Call 911!" Six heard the man, but was too preoccupied with Five to really get what he'd said.

"Five? Five? Five? Wake up. Five?" he repeated, scooting closer and closer to the body he could only hope wasn't dead. There was a man's hand on Five's neck and he shoved it away, not wanting Five's father to touch him again.

"He's alive. Thank god. Jesus, Five! Are you okay?" the man said loudly as Five's eye fluttered for a moment before opening halfway.

"The ambulance is on the way," a woman said as she came in from the kitchen with a phone in her hand. Six shoved the man away from Five again and helped him sit up himself. Suddenly, Five pushed off him and turned, throwing up and groaning something he couldn't make out.

"Five?" he asked. He grabbed his friend under his arms and dragged him to the side, away from the vomit. There was the metallic sound of the hair scissors from his own house being set on wood and then a sharp pain in his scalp. He flinched away from whatever it was that had touched him, turning to see his mother clicking her tongue.

"Six, you're going to need to get to the hospital, too. That needs stitches," she said, staring at the part of his head that was now very itchy and achy.

He reached up, one hand still propping up Five in front of him, and felt a warm stickiness drenching his hair. He slid his finger down and looked at the collar of his shirt. It was soaking red. "Oh..." he mumbled. Another vision was snagging on his consciousness and he tried not to fall into it like usual, but it was difficult. It was the other life again, and not nearly as important as helping Five currently.

"Oh, no... What happened?" Two's voice popped up in the forefront of his mind and he looked around dazedly to see which reality it was coming from.

"Five, are you okay?" Two asked, kneeling down next to Six and ducking his head, face up, to catch Five's eyes. They were dilated and unfocused. "What the hell happened here?" he demanded of the rest, anger flaring in his tone.

"Him. It was him. He did it," Six told him as the vision tried to drag him under again. Flashes of stained glass danced over his vision. He pointed in the general direction of where he assumed Five's father to be.

"I did it," the man's voice said.

He must have pointed correctly.

"I can't-I'm not sure how-It's all my fault," Five's dad admitted shakily. "I-I was yelling at him and I pushed him back and walked away and there was this crash and he's on the floor and-and, I don't know," he continued as the sirens outside got louder and louder.

Five mumbled something no one could make out before gagging and tipping over, his head on Two's thigh and his side pressed against Six's knees. His eye closed again as the sirens halted and the EMTs rushed the room.

Vision. It was a stupid examination of the glass as his stitchpunk self wondered how it was made. It might have been interesting at some other time, but it was endlessly annoying right now.

Suddenly Six was outside, walking alongside a stretcher that was carrying his best friend, able to remember only a blur of the last ten minutes. Then he was being pushed into the ambulance next to Five and someone kept poking him in the head. "Stop...stop!" he snapped at them and saw the EMT's gloved hands with his blood on the fingers just above his face. He heard Five groan and turned to him, but he wasn't anywhere near awake. "Quit!" he snarled when the hands brushed his aching head again.

"You need to calm down and let me help," the EMT said.

He glared and scooted away a few inches. They reached for his head again and he ducked. The ambulance came to a full stop and the door opened. Another flurry of motion and yelling and visions and then he was being led into a white room while they wheeled Five down the hall. "Wait!" he called out, trying to follow. He was caught. He struggled.

"Six, calm down and get into the room!" he heard his mom say from down the hall. He turned his head and saw her walking very quickly toward him from the opposite direction they'd taken Five in. "You need to pay attention and listen to the doctor," she ordered as she approached him and whoever was grabbing him. He looked back to where they'd taken Five, but he was gone. Out of sight, out of mind. He sank into the vision that was attacking him. He really wished he had a pen.

"Six! Six, are you okay?" he heard Two ask.

He faded into the present again and looked around. He'd been sat on a bed and was now in a hospital sweatshirt the same grey colour as elephant feet. "Where's Five?" he asked, looking around.

"He's getting some scans done on his head," Two told him. "Are you all right?"

"Nothing wrong with me," he frowned, looking himself over. It had been Five who'd been hurt, not him.

"Six, c'mere," Two said, grabbing his hand and directing it up over his head. "Now gently..." he said, touching Six's fingers to his scalp. He saw the other boy's eyes go wide and pulled the hand away, not letting him grab at the staples like he knew Six wanted to.

"Wh-what?" Six choked, trying to twist his wrist out of Two's grip.

"Calm down. You have a cut on your head. Remember?" Two asked.

Six tried to think back. The last thing he remembered doing was reaching into his own seams to retrieve an extra pen nub after his thumb fell off. "W-wait...no...that was..." he muttered to himself, thinking back further. Two let him go as he relaxed his arm and he reached up slowly to feel his head again. "Scissors?" he asked.

"Yes. Which is why you need to sit still when I cut your hair!" his mom said and he jumped, not having realized she was in the room.

He saw her walk over and felt himself being hugged by her. He gave her a pat on the back, but was staring at Two, rather wishing she'd go sit down again. "Five?" he asked.

"Getting scans," Two told him again.

Six remembered sort of.

"He'll be here in about half an hour, they said," Two elaborated.

"Headache," Six muttered as a shooting pain washed over his whole head. It disappeared and the cut went numb again.

"I'll ask the nurse if he can give you something," his mom said and pushed a button on the wall. He wished she wouldn't.

A young man walked in a few seconds later. Six stared at him while feeling his cut again. It felt like there were staples in his skin. With a jolt, he realized there probably were. If there were staples in his head, who knew what Five was going through. He scooted off the bed and made his way out the door while his mother talked to the nurse, his brain and ear throbbing and his eyesight a little blurred. He headed down the hall in the direction he'd last seen Five being taken.

"Six, where do you think you're going?" he heard his mom shout as he was grabbed by the arm and led back to the room and gently but firmly pushed back into the bed.

"Have to find him," he told her and tried to get up again. She pushed him down again. This was getting annoying. "Stop!" he growled, getting fed up with people prodding him about.

"Six, they're bringing Five here in..." Two checked his watch. "about twenty minutes. You just need to stay put."

"But-!" he began, but wasn't sure where he'd been going with the sentence. With a worried sigh, he sat back against the pillows, sinking into them uncomfortably. His ear was burning. He reached up and felt the cut over it again. His hand was grabbed and pulled away from the injury and he snarled and pushed the offender away roughly. It was more like he smacked them away, really.

"Six, do you need a pill?" he heard his mom threaten angrily.

He remembered he was supposed to be reattaching his thumb and felt in his side for his seam. He found a seam, but it wasn't the right one. It was on the sweatshirt. Then he remembered. It wasn't there. "Fuck!" he screamed, frustrated with himself. Stupid visions! Creeping into his present!

"I'll take that as a yes," he heard his mom say.

Wait, what? _Oh, goddamnit, _he thought to himself. She'd been talking about pills...

"Wait, no!" he amended as quickly as he could, but she was reaching into her purse. Had she brought that with her? What sort of woman with a bleeding child remembers her purse? "No-! Mm!" he yelled, jamming his mouth shut as she tried to push the pill in. He shoved her away and she knocked his hands off herself and where did those extra two arms come from?

"Ms. Hunny! Six! You-both need to-quit it!" Two grunted, pushing his teacher away from Six as he stopped Six from leaping off the bed. "Six, she won't give you a pill so calm down! Ms. Hunny, quit using sedation as punishment and let him be who he is! I think he deserves it right now!" he growled, having wanted to yell at both of them for a very long time.

Six glared at his mother, who was putting the pill back, and huffed. He petulantly reached for his seam again before realizing he wasn't in a vision and growling. Just to show that stupid vision, he scratched down his torso where his seam should have been and was just at the bottom when he realized his side had split open and he was mechanical inside.

With a mental snarl, he realized that his body wasn't listening to him anymore. He was stuck in the vision. Knowing that his other body would react the same way his mental body did while he was in the vision, he stayed still since he didn't have any paper before him that he knew of and he couldn't feel a pen in his hand.


	4. He's Stuck

Six snapped back out of his vision when the blurs from reality started indicating that Five was back. He struggled back to the hospital scene and found his friend being transferred to the white bed at an angle to the one he himself was occupying.

"Five!" he exclaimed and threw off the white blanket covering him, jumping out of the bed before his mother could grab him. He pushed Five's dad out of the way and took the place next to Five's pillow. "Five, are you okay? Hurt?" he asked, trying to stay quiet and not quite succeeding.

"Yeah, 'm fine, Six," Five said, but he sounded anything but. He had a pretty bad shiner over his non-eye and a bandage wrapped around his head.

Six noticed someone place a dish on the bed next to him. That would be for in case the concussed one threw up again. He spent a few moments looking Five over to make sure nothing else was wrong. It took so long because he was fighting off the visions again. It was just his luck that today would be the day they increased in severity. Or maybe it was because of what happened today that he was too weak to fight them off as easily as he usually did. Either way, he was trying very hard not to get frustrated.

"...Dad, it's gon' be fine. Don' worry," Five said with a pathetic smile.

Six saw that his friend's parents were being led away by someone in a nice suit and he turned back to Five. "What's happening?" he asked.

"They're going to be questioned about child abuse, no doubt," Two answered for Five. "Don't worry. I may disagree with how your dad does things, Five, but I know he doesn't ever mean to hurt you. They'll be able to see that, too."

"N'verth'less. Ca'I come stay with you wh'n they lock 'em up?" Five asked with a stupid expression on his face.

"Hey, I'd kidnap you in a second. You know that," Two nodded. "You need anything? Water? Barf bowl? I could run home and get your eye patch," he offered, figuring they must have removed it for his scan and who knew where it had ended up.

"N'...hurt too much t' put 't on. Do I look manly?" Five asked, that stupid grin widening.

"Like a bodybuilder," Two nodded.

"Boxer," Six corrected.

"You're right. He's punchy, too. Took one too many in the head," Two replied to Six, speaking to him from Five's other side.

"On accou' of you' mother, she can' keep 'er mouth shut," Five said in a very realistic Jerry Lewis impression.

"I say if you can joke at a time like this, you don't even need to be in the hospital," Two told Five.

"'M sure," Five nodded. Then he flipped the blankets down over his legs and made to stand up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. It was a joke!" Two said, holding his hand out but not pushing Five back down.

"I know. Need'a use th' bathroom," Five said, flicking his eye over to the small room in the corner.

"I'm not sure you're supposed to stand," Two worried, still holding his hands out to catch Five should he need it.

Six hurried around the bed and took the hand Five was leaning on the bed with as he walked. He put Five's arm over his shoulder and helped him walk over to the washing room. "Don't lock the door," he ordered simply as he let Five go.

"Sure," Five nodded as he shut the door behind himself. Two and Six stayed standing at the door to wait for him nervously.

"Six, we need to go in a few minutes, hon. Your dad needs to get to work by eight and we can't leave the others home alone," Ms. Hunny said as she found her purse.

"No," Six said in a distracted tone as he watched the door. He was trying not to be defiant, but he really needed to stay.

"Six, it's not an argument. We need to get home. Darlene and Two can take care of Five just fine," the teacher countered and it was obvious she wasn't in the mood to fight with her son yet again.

"Have to stay. I have to stay!" Six snarled desperately. He wasn't needed at home and he would only end up getting in trouble again. He'd gone through more pills in the last month than he had in the six before it. He couldn't help it! Ever since Five had spoken to him, they wouldn't leave him alone, grabbing onto him even when he wasn't trying to see them.

"Six, seriously. I'm stressed out enough, and I would appreciate it if you would not fight about this. I need to keep an eye on your head tonight and I need to be home in half an hour so your sister can leave," Maria reasoned.

"No, I have to-! I have to..." Six groaned as he pressed the back of one of his fists to his forehead. The reminder of his injury triggered the pain he hadn't been feeling before and a vision took its chance to try to wash him down into the other reality. He could feel the world spin and put his hand on the wall to steady the vertigo.

"I can take care of his head tonight, Ms. Hunny," Two offered. The sink turned on in the bathroom.

"No, he needs to come home so I don't worry," Maria turned the offer down.

Six couldn't take it anymore. With one last waver, he suddenly stilled and his face went blank.

"And there's my chance," his mom said, taking his hand and leading him out. Unlike usual, though, Six didn't stay placid.

"No!" he yelled and yanked his hand out of hers. He could barely see the hospital scene reality through his vision, but he got dark, cloudy flashes every few seconds. He stumbled back and ran into the edge of the bed, falling to the floor with one leg bent and the other out as he gripped the blanket on top with his hand. He could feel the cold tile underneath his other hand.

"Six, we do not have time for this!" his mom said and grabbed his hand off the floor to help him stand up.

He didn't budge. "Staying. Staying!" he snarled back at her.

"Six, your mom wants to make sure you're okay," Two said as the bathroom door opened. He took Five's shoulders and helped him back to the bed.

The somewhat sprawled teen could feel it shake under his hand as Five got in. "Makes things worse! Makes everything worse!" he yelled, trying to stay conscious, but it was no use. The hospital scene was going darker and quieter. A few seconds passed and he could feel only fuzzy indications of what was going on. Nevertheless, he struggled. He knew he was reacting like he wanted in the other world because the hands he felt on his arms were getting tighter and rougher. He felt a pill being pushed into his mouth and spit as quickly as he could. There was the slightest prick in his arm and suddenly even the vision went black.

When he awoke, he felt wrong. He opened his eyes and looked around. His head was thumping with pain and his body wasn't responding well. He was in a car. He looked over and saw his mom. The mirrors showed no one in the back seat. He had to get back to Five.

"Six, you put your seatbelt back on_ right now_," Maria ordered in a loud voice.

Six's head started thumping so hard that his sight flashed black in time with the pressure. He reached for the door handle and suddenly the pavement was scraping his legs and arms. He could hear the car stop and his mom screaming at him. He had to get away. He would be in so much trouble. But he couldn't stand. His legs weren't responding. So instead, he started clawing his way back to the hospital. There were headlights racing by him on the right and suddenly he was grabbed under the arms around his ribs. His mom was wrestling him back into the car.

"Five," he mumbled, trying with no success to get away from her. She funneled him back into his seat and everything went black again.

He wasn't sure how long it was, but he stayed in his visions for longer than he ever had before. He knew he should go back to the reality he could control his own body in to eat and take care of himself, but every time he checked, Five and Two weren't with him. He didn't want to go back if his mom would be there, waiting to get mad at him. One time, when he checked, he saw her sitting next to his bed. Immediately, he fell back into his vision. He could feel her grabbing him and could tell she was saying something, but he didn't react.

His stitchpunk self was having a great time of it, though. He'd been tinkering with alternate Five and Two's inventions, going through giant libraries, all sorts of things. Everyone had left the church with him still in it for the past few days. And besides, nothing hurt in this place. Back in the control reality, everything ached, his stomach seemed to be caving in on itself, his sight was blotchy at best, and his head pounded with every pump of his heart.

Nevertheless, he knew he needed to get to Five to make sure he was okay. He decided to check again. This time, it was dark. He was in his room. His head began pounding, but he resisted the urge to fall back into his vision. He was starving too, but there was no time for food. He had to get out of the house, and he had to do it with no one noticing him. He got up slowly and had no choice but to feel every twinge of his muscles. Leaving his shoes off, he made his way quietly over to the window that let out to the back of the house. There was a lattice he could climb down if he avoided the rose thorns growing through it. He quickly and quietly made his way down and landed with a soft thud in the yard after jumping the last five feet. His legs crumpled underneath him, but he managed to stand up again and limped out of the yard and onto the road.


	5. I'm Staying

He made it to Five's house and knocked on the door.

"Hello?" a tired voice asked him when the door opened.

"Is Five here?" he asked.

"Yeah, but he's asleep. It's almost ten. Why aren't you at home?" Five's mom asked.

"Mom's mad at me. Can I go see Five?"

"He and Two are sleeping right now. But you can stay on the couch if you want. Does your mom know you're here?" Five's mom asked him, concerned.

"Yeah. Yeah, she said she doesn't wanna deal with me right now. Can I eat dinner here?" Six requested. He realized that his visions weren't trying to take him over. He must have some sort of time limit in this world; unless he spent time avoiding it willingly like before he spoke with Five, the other world would steal him away.

"Yes, of course you can. Come on in," she said, jerking him out of his ponderings, and stepped back from the entrance, widening the door so he could enter.

He walked in and made a beeline for the kitchen. Judging from the x-marked calendar on the wall, it had been two days since the hospital. No wonder he was so hungry. "Can I have soup?" he asked, pointing to a can of Spaghettios. He was in a great mood. For once he was out of his house and his mom wasn't watching his every move in case he tried to actually do anything.

"Yeah. Do you want me to make it for you? Six, right? My name is Darlene," Darlene offered.

"I can do it. You can go to bed if you want," Six told her, getting the can down and grabbing a bowl from the cupboard next to it.

"No, I haven't been able to sleep. I've been wondering, though. How did you know Five was hurt?" the woman asked him as she sat down at the table and crossed her arms over it.

"I saw it. When I was at my house, I saw it happen. I ran here, but it was too late," he said with a smile, glad to be able to tell his story without the threat of drugs.

"I see. Do you see things like that a lot?" Darlene queried with an open mind. She may never have believed in those psychics and ghost-hunters on TV, but she knew there were things in the world she couldn't do herself. Who was she to deny his words? It didn't matter either way to her life whether he was telling the truth and she didn't know him well enough to tell when he was lying.

"Not like that. I see things from another time usually. It's from another life. Usually I can't stop seeing it," he explained.

"But not right now," Darlene guessed.

"No. Not right now."

"Because of your head?" She pointed to it, lifting her chin off her hand to do so.

Suddenly his head hurt again, and everything else with it. "No. Because I stayed in a vision since I went home from the hospital," he said, still feeling oddly clear-headed despite the pain. It was nice.

"I see. Let me help you with that," Five's mom offered, taking the can from him.

His arm had a huge scrape on it and his wrist hurt when he twisted it, so he was having a hard time cleaning the soup from the can with the spoon. "Thank you. Thank you!" he grinned happily. For once in his life, an adult was treating him like a normal teenager instead of like a crazed annoyance.

"No problem, kiddo," Darlene smiled at his enthusiasm. "That'll be done in a couple minutes. Be careful-it's hot," she said, pointing to the microwave. "I'm gonna go get you some blankets and pillows for the couch and then I'll try my hand at getting some sleep again, I think. So good night, Six," she said with a yawn.

"Good night, Five's mom," Six smiled at her. She smiled back tiredly and then left him alone in the kitchen. He ate and went to lay on the couch a few minutes later. With nothing else to do, and not being particularly tired, he sank into a vision so he would have some time built up for the next day when Five and Two woke up to be clear-headed.

"Six! What is _wrong with you?_" he heard his mother's voice screeching from inside his vision. He very stubbornly stayed put in the sanctuary.

"Calm down, Maria! Jeez, the kid's stressed out enough as it is!" came Five's mom's voice.

"He ran away from home! Do you know what that's _like?_ Of course not! You have a _good_ child!" his mom huffed. He could see flashes of her and heard when her arms flapped out and then fell with a clap to her sides. "Six, I know you can hear me! _Wake up!_ I'm getting tired of this from you!" 

"Shh! Let him sleep a while! He only got here four hours ago!" the mother he would prefer to have hushed. Then he felt Five and Two coming down the stairs sleepily and felt more alert.

"Mom? What's going on?" Five asked as he limped slowly down the steps, Two holding him up under his armpits for the most part.

"It's nothing. Six decided to come over without waking up his family to tell them where he was going. Go back to sleep," his mother answered easily, trying to lead Maria out of the room by the upper arm, but the woman broke away from her when she saw Six sit up on the couch.

"Five! Are you okay?" the stripy-clothed boy questioned, getting up on his knees on the cushions and propping himself on the back of the couch with his elbows.

"I'm fine, Six. Really. Thanks for coming though," Five smiled but was nervously surveying the two true adults in the room as he replied.

"Oh, do _not_ thank him! Six, you are in such trouble! Now stand up! You are coming home with me!" Maria ordered angrily, pointing to the floor by her feet. When he only glared at her in return, she walked over and grabbed his shirtsleeve over his upper arm and tried to pull him up.

"Get off! Get _off!_" He shrugged her off and got up from the couch, holding his key tightly and backing away from her toward the window so he could get to the stairs without passing by her.

"Six, I mean it! Right now! Do you want me to start counting like when you were little?" his mom threatened, her voice becoming more ominous.

Six thought he would explode with frustration, but his mind was clear for once, without visions tugging at his concentration. "No! No! Don't you get it? I don't _want _to go with you! And I'm not _going _to! I go home with you now while you're this angry and I spend the next three days sedated! I am _hungry_, my head hurts, my everything _else _hurts-and I don't feel like adding all the _great _things that come with being drugged on top of it! So you go home by yourself until you feel like _dealing _with me like a person instead of a nuisance! I can finally _think_ for one of the few times in my life and you're not going to ruin it for me by taking every chance of coherent thought away from me with those _goddamn_ pills like you _always do!_ I finally have a chance to say what I want and all you're going to do is ruin it and then get mad at me when I finally wake up and am unable to form complete sentences again!" he yelled forcefully. Everyone in the room save for Two seemed to be visibly taken aback, but of course Two was just proud of him. He started clapping slowly.

"Well _said_, Six! _Finally_. I knew you had it in you," he grinned a bit pridefully as he walked forward, after making sure Five was stable of course, and slapped his hand around Six's shoulder.

Maria had a dark look on her face, though not an angry sort of one. "Six, can I speak to you in private for a moment?"

"_No_," Six said warily, taking a step back from her. "No," he repeated. She would use any chance she could to drug him or force him back home somehow. She did it every time. Usually he could control himself well enough to stay in his room for weeks at a time between going to school where she almost never let him out of her sight, but sometimes he got the urge for human interaction in his excitement and convinced himself that maybe she wouldn't use the pills if he tried to speak to his family for a while. It had never once worked out in his favour.

He said as much to them and her expression grew darker with every word.

"Six, I didn't mean to-..." She hesitated, shook her head, and continued. "You can come home later if you want to," she told him and picked up her purse. As she walked out the door and it clicked shut behind her, he let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Two patted him on the back of his shoulder and walked back to Five to help hold him up. He seemed to be struggling to stay upright using the banister.

"Don't do that," Six winced. "I jumped out of the car on the exit ramp," he explained.

"_Smart_," Darlene snorted. "Good job, by the way. I've been wanting to say that to her for a long time, but I figured it wasn't my place."

"It would have just made her mad anyways," Six said as he frowned at the floor.

"I thought as much," she nodded.

"How come you're so..._eloquent_ now?" Five inquired, shifting in Two's stabilizing embrace.

"I just spent two and a half days in a full vision. I've built up some time to spare," Six shrugged. "Can I get something to eat?" he asked Five's mom.

"Yeah. Can you get it for him, Two? I really need to get some sleep if I'm going to make it to work in five hours," Darlene yawned.

"Sure, Mrs. H," the bald teen nodded and helped Five over to the couch as she left the room. "You guys stay put there. I'll make sandwiches or something." He walked halfway to the kitchen before pausing and turning his upper body around again to face Six. "Why did you jump out of a moving car again?"

"I wanted to get back to the hospital," Six answered simply, as if it were obvious.

Two nodded as if he understood perfectly, but in an overly exaggerated way. "I see. How did that work out for ya?"

"Not great. Not as great as I'd hoped it would be. I was...a bit high at the time," Six replied in a tone that conveyed confusion at his own actions as he cocked his head to the side and looked into space as he looked back on his thought processes. "To be fair, though, I didn't have a whole ton of options."

"Right. No, I can see where you were coming from. Still. Don't do it again," Two cautioned with just a touch or sarcasm as he turned and continued into the kitchen. Six nodded to himself and looked over to Five to see what he was thinking only to find that he'd fallen asleep with his head in the corner of the couch. He smiled.


	6. It's Normal

They spent the next day in the garage at Two's house while he worked on the cannon. Five watched in between naps and Six occasionally held things for him when he needed something twisted into shape and other things along those lines. Grunt work, basically. But he liked it.

After Two had made something for him to eat the night before, the teen had gone back upstairs to bed, leaving Six and Five on the couch to doze. Six had taken the time to fall into a full vision again so he'd have that much more time. Maybe he'd be able to last a whole day, or even two, with this much saved up.

"...But then we tried to put the cat in and he just wouldn't stay in the water and we had to give up," Two finished relating his story about the Noria Incident to him with a resigned shrug as he tightened a bolt in the base of the cannon. It had been brought up when Two's tabby, Nine-Hundred-and-Forty-Two, walked through the garage, jumped up behind Two, slapped him in the back of the knee so he nearly fell, and ran off with a happy trill. "It basically started open-season on me in her eyes," he explained.

"Ever tried it again with edges on the outside of the thing to keep the water out?" Six asked.

"Yeah, that was the original design, but it leaked too much and we couldn't be bothered to fix it after the initial trial. She wouldn't let us go near her for a week." Two frowned absently. "Unless she was pouncing on us or eating our homework."

Six let out a bark of laughter. "She eats homework? _Really_?" he exclaimed in pleased disbelief.

"Yeah, but what teacher would go for _that_? We had to redo it all in one day." Two smirked. "But we did deserve it after all."

"No one deserves that," Five said as he woke up again in his lawn chair and stretched his arms and legs.

"Five! Feeling better?" Six asked as he walked over and got down on his knees next to his friend, his hands braced on the armrest.

"Oh, tonnes," Five nodded and yawned. "Some Advil couldn't hurt though."

"I'll go get some!" Six said and made off for the kitchen in Two's house. He stopped short. "Uh, where-?"

"To the left, cupboard over the microwave," Two informed him complete with hand gestures.

As soon as he left, Five spoke up. "He's doing better. Maybe some healthy blood-loss was all he needed."

A frightening look came over Two's face for a split second before appearing to be simply a look of deliberation. "I don't like his family," he said in a clipped tone.

"...The feeling is mutual. He's _not_ going back there," Five said with a note of finality. "I don't care how much she seems to have changed. My dad gave me a concussion and I still trust him more than I'll ever trust her." He wasn't entirely sure why he disliked her so much; maybe it was because of the fear that emanated from Six when she was near. And when Six had blown up the night before, he'd seemed all too sincere in his frustration, and all too accustomed to her apologetic tone.

"You can say that again," Six declared as he walked back into the garage from the open door to the hallway with a glass of water in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other.

"Six. Sorry. I don't mean to badmouth your mom, but..." Five trailed off.

"No, it's... Well, she's genuinely sorry, but...she'll go back to being herself as soon as I start in on... _it_ again. Get on her nerves again," Six reasoned. "This coherence won't last longer than a couple days, if that. I'll need to actually get some sleep eventually and I don't want to spend another two full days in the other world. As easy as it makes things...it's scary there. Especially when I don't have _this _world tugging at my mind."

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Five began. "Ever since I talked to you about it that one day, I've been having dreams."

"Me too," Two added. "Dreams where I'm made of clockwork."

Six looked at them both before grinning ecstatically. "_I_ knew it was real, but I never thought anyone _else_ could see it!"

"I made this the other night. It's not done. I was doing it right before Five got beaten upside the head with a table," Two said as he went over to his workbench and opened the drawer.

"You make it sound so tragic," Five muttered.

Two ignored him and brought a beat-up cardboard box over to Six. "Look inside. That's you, right?"

Six opened up the top of the box and saw his stitchpunk self staring back up at him. Well, it had no hair and its limbs were only half done, but it was basically him. "_Oh, my..._" he breathed.

"Yeah. Usually I just dream of inventions, but now I keep seeing the Numbered Children as these..._doll things,_" he said, trying not to seem as worried as he was.

"Stitchpunks," Six corrected him.

"What?" Two asked.

"Stitchpunks. I call them stitchpunks," he elaborated. "Steampunk. Stitched."

"Ah. Good idea, that," Two nodded, enlightened.

"Lemme see," Five requested. Six brought the box over and Five picked the doll up. "We're kinda cute in this other world," he mentioned off-handedly, turning the stitchpunk replica over in his hands.

"_We_ are," Two muttered and chuffed softly.

"What?" Five questioned with a nonplussed frown.

"Nothing," Two smiled and brushed him off in favour of getting back to his work on the cannon.

"What?" Five repeated to Six, who shrugged and took the doll back so he could put it away in the drawer again.

The next day, Six was almost back to normal. They were sitting in the ice cream parlor again, stopped by on their way to the hardware store. He kept pausing and repeating words like he did, but he was successfully carrying on a conversation.

"You don't seem so bad still," Five remarked as the former topic dwindled naturally.

"I...I feel back to...normal..." Six said haltingly, his focus flickering from Five during the words to somewhere far off during the pauses.

"Hm. Yesterday must have been a relief then. You couldn't follow a conversation before," Two said absently as he scooped a maraschino cherry into his mouth.

"Didn't try. Didn't try as hard... Got me in trouble," Six explained, remembering his sweet when he saw Two eating. Five had already finished his.

"Mm. So wha'd'you see now?" Five asked curiously.

"Routine. Just routine. Drawing...One is yelling...yelling about...something... Not listening," the striped boy said around his spoon, concave side down on his tongue.

"Hey, I was thinking, uh...would you be allowed in regular classes now at school? I don't...really..._trust_ your mom right now..." Five said, trying to hedge around the subject while still being straightforward so he could follow it.

"Ask. I could ask. Maybe. Drawing is... I like drawing," Six replied, eyes sitting on Five the entire time. But then he got dazed again.

"But what if she does something while you're there and no one else is?" Two asked suspiciously.

"No...no, I think...she wouldn't do that..." Six shook his head and dipped the spoon back into his parfait. His right hand was drawing small designs in the table with his nails. He took a deep breath and looked around the parlor as if he'd forgotten where they were before settling back down. He chuckled softly at himself around his spoon.

"I don't like her. I used to think Five's dad was bad. At least he actually raised him, paid attention to his life," Two said with a frown.

Five used to get so bored of listening to Two rant about his father when he was never actually that horrible to him. He wouldn't call it anywhere near abuse, but Two never saw it that way. His parents were so tolerant and, as his own dad would say, touchy-feely almost to the point of spoiling him. Luckily Two wasn't the type to go rotten.

He noticed Six's eyebrows stitch close in distress. "Don't listen to him, Six. He talked like that about my dad for hours at a time sometimes. He doesn't get why all parents aren't exactly like his."

"No, it's not...it's not! I mean...sometimes...I think so too," Six countered in worry. "Scares me."

"...Well...you can stay with us for as long as you want. You don't ever _have_ to go back. We can go get your things if you want. My mom will agree. And my dad won't mind too much. And Two's parents will fall at his feet if he asks them to," Five said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Yeah... Yeah, that'd be...nice..." Six said and then grinned directly at the two as he scooped another spoon of rapidly melting ice cream. "I'll stay," he said with a note of finality. "I'll stay!"

"Perfect," Five smiled back at him.

"But...she's not...not _too_ bad...most of the time. Just. Just when I annoy her," Six elaborated.

"Yeah, well she has no right to get annoyed with you. No one _else _does. It's her problem, not yours. Remember that," Two asserted. "Otherwise we wouldn't be your friends. Which we are. So there's that."

"Yeah. Yeah," Six acceded. It was obvious he was becoming bothered by the topic from the redness around his eyes.

"Anyways, we should get to the shop before it closes," Five announced, switching the subject, if not seamlessly then successfully.

"Right. You finished?" Two asked Six, gesturing to the mostly empty glass of liquid dessert in front of him.

"Yeah," Six nodded and stood up, checking his surroundings thoroughly as he slid out of the booth. Five and Two moved out of their side and led the way out. They may have been there before, but Six never paid any attention to routes, even ones as simple as an exit.

As they walked along the dusty, dusk-lit sidewalk, Six fell behind the two as they talked to each other. Noticing this, Five stopped and waited until he caught up and took his hand to urge him along. They reached Two, who was paused a few meters ahead of them, and Five frowned and blushed at his smirk that accompanied a gaze that fell to their hands before flickering up again.

"Shut up, Two," Five warned. The smirk turned mirthful and Two just shrugged and continued along a step ahead of them and continued the debate on the colour of their thirty-foot catapult they were going to build in the field. Unfortunately, Five lost. It was going to be glow-in-the-dark apparently. Which wasn't so bad considering his own suggestion had been reflective orange.

"Wait, what d'_you_ think, Six?" Five asked as they walked through the entrance to the store and the smell of fresh lumber hit them like a sneaker wave.

Six hadn't caught the entire argument, but he'd caught the gist of it. "Mirror ball," he suggested in a simpering way. The two stopped in their tracks and stared at him for a long moment. Well, long to Six. He got worried by their shocked expressions. "What? _What?"_

Then they looked to each other in sync and grinned identical grins. "Mirror ball," they concurred simultaneously.

"I could kiss you," Two said in admiration of Six before turning a pointed stare on Five. "But unfortunately that responsibility falls to someone else!" he giggled and shot off when Five stomped in his direction threateningly.

"What?" Six enquired, confused by the strange antics of the two.

"Nothing. He's just being an ass," Five growled with little of the emotion that usually entailed the manner. "Come on, we need to find him. He's got all the money."

"Kay..." Six acquiesced, letting himself be dragged along behind an insistent Five. Thankfully his leader slowed after a short distance to put his hand to his head and get his balance back. "Concussion?"

"Yeah," Five confirmed before looking up at him through the corner of his eye. The aisle of light bulbs was not helping matters. "Not a problem."

"Good. Good," Six nodded decisively and they continued on. "C'we stop...by my house? On the way back?" he requested hesitantly.

"No problem. Gonna pick up some stuff?" Five asked casually, which helped calm him. Act like it's not a big deal and suddenly it seems like less of one.

"Yeah. Yeah-. Clothes. Art," he listed. He stopped when he noticed his hand was still being held by Five's. He looked down and then back up at Five, conveying nothing but curiosity.

"S-sorry," Five stuttered and squirmed his hand out of Six's loose grip. He took two steps ahead before Six realized he should follow. He trotted forward and snatched Five's hand up again. They heard raucous cackling from the end of the aisle and saw Two.

"Shut _up!_" Five shouted and walked slowly but with exasperated resolve up to Two, who motioned them along to the lumber aisle.

They requested their supplies to be delivered to the valley, which was only agreed to by the staff because they knew Two personally. Five related Six's appeal to stop at his house on the way home, which was actually past both their places, but the attempt to convey less inconvenience was accepted.

"...Of course," was all Two said on the matter and in a very modest way, Five thought. The knowing consideration beforehand spoke volumes even so.

"Thank you. Thanks," Six said, knowing they'd be going out of their way for him. "You'll...you'll come in? With me?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Two agreed in an only halfway joking manner.

"Thanks..." Six said again.

They got to the house well past sunset along the paved path lined with streetlights. Six pulled his house key out of his shoe, losing his hold on it the first time when he lost his balance, but grabbing it successfully the second.

"Six! You came home!" his mom exclaimed as she poked her head into the hallway. She had a pleased smile on her face that Six couldn't stand to see.

"Just to...collect some stuff..." he mumbled toward the floor where the carpet met the wall.

"What?" she asked, stumbling over the word and with eyes wide in query.

"We're here to _collect his stuff_. Pay attention," Two snarked, snapping his fingers twice at her cattily.

"Oh..." she breathed and nodded in resign. She stepped to the side and they brushed past her silently, one in shame, one in reproach, and one in ambivalence.

Once upstairs, Six unlocked his attic and led the two up.

"Holy wow..." Two breathed as he looked around the art-coated room. "Nice setup you got here. I can see why you'd miss it."

"Yeah..." Six agreed absently as he grabbed the satchel he used for his art supplies that he took to and from the school. He went over to his dresser and stuffed a few outfits in, all of them identical to the pinstriped clothes he had on. He hooked the flap down and went over to his unkempt bedding to gather up a few stacks of parchment and stationary. He slid his artist's kit over, the high-quality wooden one, and put the sheets in before snapping the latches down.

"That all you need?" Two asked.

"For now. For now," Six nodded, looking over his papered walls. He considered taking some of it with him before deciding there was no room left in the cases. He started off before stopping short and backtracking a few steps. "This one." He unpinned the drawing of the tree that Five had given him and rolled it up, strapping it onto his satchel with the buckles.

"Good?" Five queried. Six nodded again, this time silently. "Good."

As they made their way back downstairs, Maria caught the last one in the group. "Here, you might need these," she said to Five, pressing something cylindrical into his hand. He looked at it. The pills she used to sedate Six.

Two was ordinarily a laidback sort: always logical, always creative. But there was one thing that pushed his buttons, and that was people who intentionally hurt innocents.

He slammed his palm into the wall as he stalked over to Five. He roughly snatched the prescription bottle out of his hand and walked into the kitchen. He turned the knob on the faucet and pressed his hand into the childproof cap, twisting it off. He then, very pointedly, dumped the pills down the drain and ran the stream of water over them for good measure. He stomped back to Six's mother, closing the bottle on the way over, and pelted it at the wall behind her.

"Do. Not. Speak," he snarled. With that, he grabbed the front of Five's shirt and dragged him down the hall, knowing he'd be shocked into paralysis by the display.

Six glanced one last time at his family, a few of his siblings having stepped out into the hall to spy. "Sorry," he apologized with a guilty shrug and turned away, following the angry couple ahead of him outside. He stopped in the doorway and looked back. He was angry. And he had a right to be. But he didn't glare. "It's just...you're not good people," he explained reasonably. They at least deserved that.

"Fuckin' A," Two congratulated as Six stepped into the cool night air and shut the door behind himself.

He breathed the coolness in and sighed. The mind-boggling medication was gone. His harsh family had been put in their place. He had _friends_. He smiled in a liberated sort of way. "Home?" he asked lightly with shining eyes, bright under the orange-tone streetlights.

"You got that right," Two grinned and held out his elbow. Six bounced down the steps, his head held high, and linked his arm through the offered invitation.

"That was...an ordeal," Five commented as they set off.

Six agreed wholeheartedly. "A great ordeal."

"In many senses of the word," Two added.


	7. I'm Happy

That night, in the dark blue light from the moon, Five sat up in his bed. The cot in his room held Six, but he was nowhere near asleep.

"What're you doing?" Five inquired groggily.

"Reading. Reading. Math isn't so easy," Six answered.

"You're reading a math book? Six, it's three in the morning," Five sighed and fell back on his pillow, his forearm thrown over his uncovered lack of eye.

"Can't sleep," Six explained. "Distracted."

"Overwhelmed?" Five suggested, looking at Six out of the side of his eye.

He nodded.

"Wanna go make ourselves sick from eating way too much sugar?"

"God, yes," Six breathed.

Little did Five know how energetic Six was on a sugar high. It had been three hours. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizon.

"...And then the monster beast comes and _tew tew tew_, it blows up the barrels of gasoline one by one. Huge explosions everywhere! And pieces of shrapnel raining down on us like hail!" the teen ranted.

Five couldn't tell whether Six was excited or terrified. He supposed manic was the best word to describe him. They'd had to go outside into the woods behind Five's house to keep him from waking up his parents. Nevertheless, he seemed to be much more coherent when describing what he was seeing with such enthusiasm, which made the worry Five felt that much less intimidating.

Fifteen minutes of ranting later and the energy seemed to start to dwindle.

Six lapsed into a deep silence and stared contemplatively at Five, who watched him back. "You let me talk," he said, seeming content, looking up at the sky as he stood a couple meters from Five in the moonlight.

"You seemed to like it," Five replied. "I can see why you don't like to stay there as much." He wasn't sure if by _there,_ he meant with his family or in his world.

"Yeah...but sometimes it's okay," Six smiled, the mixed message being clear and both answers the same.

Five nodded, looking absently away as he considered the reply. "Sometimes isn't good enough for you," he ended up whispering as he looked up into Six's fully alert eyes. "You'll be safe from now on. I promise you that."

Six didn't answer, but kept watching him as he slowly closed the distance between them. When he got close enough to feel the warmth spreading from Five in the cold night air, he lifted his arms up around the teen's neck and leaned in, resting his cheek on his friend's shoulder. He felt Five's hands lay over his back, pressing into his shirt shakily, and he held on tighter for a moment before pulling back.

He grabbed Five's hand out of the air as he was released and squeezed it. "Thank you."

"I-it's nothing..." Five stuttered shyly, a blush spreading over his cheeks, visible even in the dark night shadows.

Six smiled, eyes almost closed, and shook his head. "No-it's not," he countered simply. Five smiled back at him before looking away awkwardly.

"Uhm, I-I think we can go make breakfast now. It's late enough. I think I have to go back to school tomorrow, so this is maybe the last chance this week for my cooking," he tempted, gaining confidence as he went on in anticipation of banana pancakes, eggs, and ham.

Six wanted nothing more than to kiss him right then, or at least his empty stomach did. He grinned and led Five, who had forgotten about their hands still being linked, eagerly back to the house.

"Never. I've never eaten this well in my _life_," Six said happily with his mouth full of a bit of every type of food on his plate. Darlene and Scott smiled at him. It wasn't normal for Five's dad to be so lighthearted, but he'd honestly been controlling his annoyance at every little thing ever since the incident. It had taken a trip to the hospital, but he'd finally realized the extent of his anger's influence on the world around him. Thanks to his shame and embarrassment, he'd been staying in any room that wasn't occupied by Five since they'd gotten home from the hospital, and so this was the first time Six had seen him since the beginning of his attitude change. The anger management classes might have been of help as well.

"Well, I've still got two thirds of the batter left, over half a dozen eggs, and most of a ham, so you're gonna be eating this well for the rest of the day, at least," Five smiled back at him. He turned his eyes, seemingly sparkling with mirth, onto his dad. If there was one thing he knew the man couldn't resist, it was his famous breakfasts. Catching his eye finally, he smiled a bit wider at him and turned back to the stove. It may have been a small gesture, but that was how they communicated. And there may have been little love lost between them-on his dad's side at least-but he always appreciated the food. It was one of the few constants in Five's life that he knew would please the man.

He was knocked out of his reverie when a plate clanged down onto the counter beside the stove and he looked up to find Six staring at him expectantly. He chuckled, scooped another pancake out of the pan, and cracked two more eggs into a mixing cup as his friend bounced back to his seat at the table.

Six had gone through twice what Five's parents had already, but he didn't seem to be slowing down, not that anyone could blame him. Two more eggs and a slice of ham later and he finally began to lose his appetite. As he picked apart his sixth pancake with his fork, slowly turning it into syrupy mush that he found absolutely delicious, Six looked up at Five, whose parents had gone to work a few minutes ago, after making sure they'd be all right very thoroughly.

"Your dad doesn't seem so bad...actually," he said, trying to sound casual and succeeding.

"No. He's doing good," Five nodded. Six stayed silent while Five finished frying up the rest of the food, making a plate for himself and putting the, rather less than he'd expected, leftovers in the fridge.

"Come on. TV," was all Five said when he finished storing everything in the right place, picking up his plate and his glass of milk and taking it over to the couch in the other room. They'd been watching some show Six had never seen before for around five minutes when he decided he absolutely had to have the little piece of ham in the corner of Five's plate.

"You cannot _possibly _be hungry still," Five commented as the food was snatched away from him.

Six looked up at him and smiled sheepishly. "Happy," was all the said before popping the bite into his mouth and turning back to the flashing screen.


	8. In Trouble

It was finally nighttime and Five was about to take a bite of the delicious spaghetti his mom had cooked for dinner (taking up the whole day just to make the sauce) when he noticed Six's face go blank.

"Six?" he asked hesitantly. His friend's fork fell from his hand and clattered off the plate onto the floor.

Six drew in a shaking and sharp breath, his eyes going wide, and shot back in his chair, knocking it to the ground as he scrambled backwards across the kitchen floor. He tripped over the carpet at the edge of the living room and thumped down hard on his bottom, but he was still intent on running away from whatever he was seeing.

"Six, what is it?" Five asked as he ran over. He reached out and touched his shoulder only to be hit quite hard in the upper arm. He hissed and grabbed it as he stopped advancing on the terrified kid.

Six breathed, "Get away," as if he couldn't inhale, his voice running out halfway through. He fell back on the carpet suddenly and started writhing, seeming to be in pain if you could tell by the small grunts he kept making. His hand slapped down on his stomach and he scratched down the right side of it so hard that his shirt ripped, leaving about a half a square foot of his skin open for tearing apart, which he immediately began to do.

Five leaped forward and grabbed at his wrists only to lose his grip at every attempt. He was at too difficult an angle to him. He huffed in worried frustration and put his hands on Six's hips to keep him from twisting away as he climbed halfway over him, sitting on his stomach. He made for the wrists again and was able to pin them down near Six's neck, but the warm blood seeping through his jeans above his knee told him he was a bit too late.

"Dad! Get his legs! Mom, go get some sheets or towels or something to tie him up with!" Five bit out, trying to concentrate on keeping Six from getting free so hard that his vocal tones were off. The fact that Six kept bucking and kneeing him in the back didn't help matters. "TWO! GET OVER HERE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, knowing that he would be heard all the way next door thanks to a few past incidents.

Six could clearly see a giant mechanical crow-type thing standing over him. He'd escaped the church to find Two, who had been missing for three days. The monster knocked him ten inches to the side before he'd even noticed it was there, stalking him from behind. He went flying another five inches after bouncing off the dusty ground and rolled to a stop on his back, facing away from the thing, his lungs nearly failing him. He flipped over and saw the bird coming at him, the pebbles surrounding him rattling to the surface with every menacing step.

After putting a mere fifteen inches more of distance between him and the thing, he was trapped by a thirty-inch jump that left him in square in the middle of the bird's attack radius. He tried to scream, to get away, but the mother had him stuck down, crushing him into the ground by the stomach with its round-tipped, gold-trimmed beak. He struggled hard, feeling the metal bars inside him bending with the effort.

And then one of his worst fears came true: the bird lifted its head and pinned his two left limbs down, freeing him enough that he could think he was able to get away, though it was obvious to whoever might've been watching that there was no way. He flailed and scratched at the pewter claw crushing his arm, but it was no use. The robot had shoved him flat on his back, sliding its beak up to his chest until only the sharpened tip was contacting him under his right shoulder, and swiped down his stomach, pressing hard, ripping a gash down his cotton covering as it stepped down over his entire left side.

He panicked, unable to see clearly through the pain, one of his shutters sticking open when he'd tried to blink to clear his vision. Trying desperately to get his hands to the agonizing wound-to do what with them, he had no idea-he struggled that much harder, despite being able to feel his gears' teeth being stripped in his joints.

The monster now had its mouth in the ragged cavity and was biting down on various pieces of him, pulling knobs off pipes and ripping bars in half with what seemed like no effort at all. His mind went blank as he heard his own inner clockwork rattling down its gullet, but his body kept fighting for escape. The pain brought him back almost instantly and he wished desperately that it hadn't.

Five caught the sheet that was tossed over to him in midair and immediately began to recapture Six's arm, which had gone back to his dripping scratches. He moved the right arm down so he could press it to the floor with his knee in what he knew was a way that could break it if he put anymore weight on it by accident. His mom and Two came to their knees on either side of Six's shoulders, Two a bit pressed for space, wedged against the couch.

"Grab him," Five grunted, trying not to get angry-not at anyone in particular, but at the fact that this was happening to anyone, let alone Six.

Free of the burden of immobilizing the surprisingly strong and octopus-like teen underneath him, Five ripped a fat strip off the blue sheet from the closet, bundled it up into a makeshift rope that would hopefully cut down on rug burns, and threaded it underneath the arching Six's unwillingly stationary wrists. He wrapped it around a few times for safety's sake, shoved the wrist up to the connecting shoulder, stretched the fabric over his chest, and did the same with the other wrist. He wrapped the strip under his left armpit as Two knowingly lifted Six up a fraction of a foot so he could bring it around his back, back to the right hand. They'd been practicing this sort of thing since they were two years old. Using the tail he'd left at the other end after wrapping it all the way back to his shoulder blade, he tied the sheet off over his shoulder. Another strip was ripped off, pushed through the tightly bent crooks of Six's elbows, and knotted around his waist after being looped around the upper restraint to keep him from being able to raise his arms, effectively pinning Six's hands to his shoulders in sadly one of the most aching but secure positions he knew of.

There was absolutely no sign of the single-handed fight's end, and even less of one signaling any sort of exhaustion on Six's part. Tears and spit were dripping down his face as he gasped in air like he was suffocating. After sitting back and seeing this, Two reached over for one of the towels next to Darlene and cleaned him up a bit. Six didn't seem to notice.

"I'll get his feet; you stay put," the more experienced teen directed as he heaved himself up, taking a few stiff steps before his blood evened out again in his veins. He grabbed the second of the four sheets and left Five's line of sight, but the one-eyed boy could hear him giving his dad directions every few seconds.

Once all his limbs were bound to their twins, they agreed on the fact that Five would have to keep sitting on Six to stop him from jerking around across the floor and hurting himself. They were going to take the cushions from the wide couch and tie them to his back so he couldn't roll over, but it had been hard and tiring enough to get as far as they did. Besides, the fewer ropes they used, the fewer injuries he would have from them.

After sitting back on his arms, legs bent in front of him, and panting hard for a few seconds, Two spoke up from his spot a comfortable distance away from Six's legs.

"Do you have a honey bear anywhere?" he inquired.

Five could feel his dad's perturbed glance from behind him where he was still holding Six's bound feet to keep him from kneeing Five in the back. "In the snacks cupboard next to the peanut butter," he informed him.

Two nodded and hopped up with surprising agility for someone breathing so hard and in his state. The cupboard door knocked into the one next to it, a bowl was taken out, and the water turned on and then off.

"Good, it's pure," Five heard Two mutter to himself.

"What exactly are you doing?" he inquired, not knowing whether to be hopeful, confused, or irked.

Two came back, holding the bear-shaped honey bottle and a bowl of water-warm judging by the slight steam above its surface clinging to the glass.

"You can't put Neosporin over that large of a surface without poisoning him. Honey works better anyway as an antiseptic, and it'll heal it faster. The water is to thin it out so I can spread it without tearing him open anymore. Having that rope over the wound is bad enough," Two said as he dipped his already-damp hands into the bowl before squeezing out about a tablespoon of honey into his palm. He gestured for Five to lift the shreds of shirt out of the wound and then held his hands over Six's stomach. He rubbed his palms together to even out the honey, dripping a bit, and then spread it over a portion of the broken skin. He repeated this five times to get the entire area and then cleaned Six's face off again so he could pour a line of honey over his bottom lip where he'd bitten through it.

It had been half an hour since the beginning of the fit and they had to wait another ten minutes before he started to calm down, but he kept struggling weakly for another twenty. He stayed completely limp for a little under four before his eyes cleared and he looked around the room, his gaze latching onto Five above him.

"Hi. Remind me to thank Seven," he said simply, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat, licked his lips, and got a strange look on his face before looking up at Five again out of the bottom of his eyes.

"Uh. 'Kay?" Five replied, surprised at the one-sixty-degree attitude change. He felt Six shift underneath him, but it didn't occur to him to move. "You okay?" he asked warily.

Six glanced around the room again, his eyes lingering on each of the three other figures around his head staring at him in awkward silence before he again looked at Five. "Seem to be. _Well_-...I'm a bit tied up at the moment," he said completely deadpan, wiggling his fingers a few times for unneeded clarification. Five felt him shift under his legs again.

"Oh!" Five exclaimed with wide eyes and climbed off Six, settling on his knees next to him. "Oh, uhm...hang on a second. I'll get that. Two?" he said and tipped his head at Six's legs.

"On it," Two nodded, walking over to the feet on his baggy-jeaned knees as well.

"So then..." Six started conversationally, wincing every few seconds as his body was jostled and pinched painfully. Nobody continued for him. "You didn't drug me," he mentioned, looking casually over to the clock on the DVD player. He didn't react to the full hour and then some that had passed. "I probably wouldn't have blamed you for it this time," he informed his peers and looked back down his nose at Five, staying completely still as the bindings loosened and gave him some relief and blood flow back. When the makeshift rope around his middle was taken off, he realized was regular breathing was like again and that he hadn't been doing it. He thought absently that the pins and needles were going to kill him in a minute. The ties continued to disappear and he found that, yes, he had been perfectly correct in that assumption. He kicked the last few loops off his ankles a bit impatiently, displacing Two's hands, and sat up, flexing his fingers and rubbing the bottoms of his feet to-and-fro over the carpet as he very carefully unbent his arms. Nearly half of his joints popped as he sat up and he grimaced in distaste.

After what certainly felt like a very long time, his body began to calm down and he wiped his wet eyes with the heel of his palm, accepting the proffered towel from Scott to wipe his nose with, and licked his lips again. That same pondering look. He reached down to scratch at his itchy stomach only to find in surprise that it was bright red and sticky.

"...Why did you guys cover me in honey?" he asked in a lightly perplexed tone, not at all negatively. He looked up at Five curiously through his eyelashes with what could almost be classified as a smirk. Darlene quickly got him a clean shirt from the pile of sheets and handed it to him.

"It's a fetish of mine," Two said in nonchalant sincerity and shrugged as he shifted off his own legs onto the floor next to them. The two adults in the room, between whom had spent barely a fraction of the time with him that Five had, whipped their heads at him in slightly sickened and angry disbelief.

Six just pulled the new shirt over his head and situated it over his bare chest and sticky side.

"_I'm kidding,_" Two stressed, mildly annoyed at their reaction, and turned back to Six. "Jeesh. It kills germs and'll preserve you for years to come," he explained a bit jokingly-although his tone didn't betray it-after flicking his thumb at the two with a miffed expression as he nodded sideways at them.

"You candy-coated me to prevent gangreene?" Six replied with an amused eyebrow raised and this time a full-blown smirk.

"You betcher ass I did," Two nodded, pressing down on his raised knee so he could push himself off the floor, wavering slightly when he got upright before getting used to the position and steadying. "And with that, I bid you farewell. I have a miniature chicken waiting for me in the oven that I'm pretty sure is a little overdone by now." He walked out the door, which no one had noticed had been open the entire time, and shut it behind himself. A moment later, they heard him hiss a curse and jog across the driveway quickly.

"I think it's done," Six said, sighed, crossed his arms over his knees, and looked at Five contently. Or so Five thought until he really stared at him. The kid was barely holding it together; his eyes were dilated, his breathing was quiet but shallow, and his entire body was tensed and shaking almost imperceptively.

Six looked away and coughed when he noticed Five noticing him.

"Hey, come upstairs with me for a sec," the monocular-visioned teen requested in what he hoped was an insouciant tone. He flicked his eyes at his parents, asking them to leave, and they got up and went into the kitchen.

Six waited for them to occupy themselves before answering his friend without looking at him. "I'd really rather go outside."

"Me too then," Five nodded and gestured for him to lead the way.


	9. You Help

They walked almost half a mile into the woods, Six about a meter in front of Five the whole way, before the pinstriped boy stopped sharply and his head fell forward, his shoulders hunched, he brought his hands up to cover his face, and he started to shake and breathe irregularly.

Five caught up, circled him so they faced each other, and wrapped his arms around Six's shoulders, loosely in case the contact was unwanted. Immediately Six melted forward and grasped the collar at the front of his shirt in his fists. Five firmed his hold and pressed his cheek to the crown of Six's head as the smaller teen began to sob quietly into the fabric over his chest. He moved his hand to Six's neck and lowered the other one to Six's waist where he rubbed his thumb back and forth over the middle of his lower back as he waited, standing nearly motionless and silent for the following quarter-hour until Six choked back the last few of his sobs and stood straight in the tight grasp so he could look up at Five.

He swallowed heavily, sniffed, and wiped his nose with his sleeve, breathing out with an almost inaudible moan. His hands were still sandwiched between their chests and he was thankful for the warmth.

"I wish I'd brought a coat," he joked, his voice thick and nasal, his tone bordering on hysterical. He swallowed again as he sobered and looked up at Five anxiously. "I don't mean to-!" he rushed to say before snapping his mouth shut when he saw the stern expression on his friend's face that softened at his quieting.

Five wrapped his arms back around Six's shoulders and pulled him in tightly to his chest. "You have other scars," he spoke into his hair, blinking back tears. He'd caught glimpses of them when Six was struggling and his clothes rode up.

"Yeah..." Six confirmed needlessly as he pulled back, nodding a little and avoiding looking at Five for a moment.

"This is why she drugs you every time you so much as talk," Five exaggerated, but only slightly.

Six nodded and took a step back to wrap his arms around himself. He regretted it immediately when he felt the cold take over the pocket of warmth he'd broken, but he felt too awkward to move back.

Five saw the falter though and moved forward, his hands having never left the body before him.

"I _won't_ do that," he asserted through teeth clenched in a multitude of negative emotions.

Six sobbed once in relief and thankfulness, and threw his arms around Five's neck, biting back the rest of his cries but unable to quash the renewed flow of tears. He jerked with every suppressed breath, trying not to make a noise. It felt like even the slightest sound was a blare against the smothering silence of the night air surrounding them.

"I could _feel_ it," he started, unable to hold back the breath that rushed out of him as he began to cry again. "It ripped me open and tore my insides apart and took them out and _ate_ them." He felt Five tense and tried to pull away only to find he was stuck in an iron grip.

"Where the hell was _I_?" Five ground out, angry with himself even though he logically knew there was nothing he could have done about it from where he was.

"I didn't tell you I was going," Six sniffed and looked up, his panic subsiding again. He bent his neck back awkwardly so he could see Five.

"But Seven helped?" Five questioned.

Six closed his mouth when he noticed it was hanging open and nodded. He swallowed again. "She scared it off."

"...Did she bring you back home?" the one-eyed teen asked, though what he meant was had Six survived.

Six nodded a couple times and glanced down before meeting his gaze again. "She'd found Two on her own. That's why I was out there. Looking for him. They brought me back and used some replacement parts to rebuild most of what I needed to live, but the last thing I know is that I have double vision and I can only move three of my fingers. Other than that, I'm stuck. It's good enough for now, but..."

"Hm," Five nodded and looked away. He wasn't angry with him, but...Six could tell he was upset. He checked into the other place again, just the slightest bit out of fear, before snapping back.

"You got me the parts," Six told him, hoping it would make him feel better. "You dismantled four of your inventions for me. It took a long time." He tilted his head and tried to get Five to look at him. It worked, and on top of it, Five seemed a little less...guilty or something. "I really didn't want you to go back out there. But you did..." he continued in hushed tones. "I tried to tell you not to. But I couldn't say anything."

"But he's-_you're_...okay now?" Five asked.

Six nodded silently, smiling a little. "I'm good enough."

"If you have to say it's good enough, it's not good enough." Five frowned. His dad had told him this on too many occasions.

Six stayed quiet for a moment before reaching his arms up around Five's neck and standing on his tiptoes to hug him properly. "I'll be fine," he said before pulling back and smiling. He felt better now, knowing he was safe in both worlds again.

"Can you tell-I mean, do you know when this is gonna happen? Can I do anything about it?" Five asked, referring to the fit. "Like, to make you feel better? Or to pull you back here?"

Six shrugged. "Dunno. I dunno. Maybe. You could have lit me on fire and I wouldn't have known it, though. This time. I dunno."

"But you don't mind if I try?" Five asked.

Six just shrugged again, pulling half of his mouth into a smile. "Sure. Sure. Why not?"

"You're going back now, aren't you," Five said, noticing he was repeating words again. But he wasn't too nervous about it. Six wasn't panicking.

"It's...sinking. I can't...help it." Six huffed in frustration and pushed Five away suddenly. He scrubbed his face with his fists and tried to shake it off as he took a few steps back. "Stop..._stop_," he moaned with no idea of whom he was talking to. He tried not to get too upset, but his throat was tightening painfully and he audibly choked on his breath.

"Come on. Let's go home, okay?" Five said and took him by the wrist, leading him back carefully, making sure to catch him when he tripped.

Six was getting a headache. If he tried hard enough, he could get an image of the human world to show up, but it was shrouded in darkness and cloudy at best. In the stitchpunk world, all he could do was stare at the ceiling. Everyone had something better to do than keep him company. He would rather have Two and Five talking to him or something, or at least trying to figure out how to fix him in the same room as him. As it was, he was beyond bored. He was thankful however that they'd disconnected the wires that conducted his pain sensations.

He saw himself walking into Five's house and being led up the stairs. Then lighted wooden ceiling. The door to Five's room opening to reveal his cot behind it. Lighted wooden ceiling. The pillow on the cot and the lamp as he turned over. Lighted wooden ceiling. Moonlit popcorn ceiling. That jerked him out of his trance. His made his mental self sit up and his human body obeyed in a disconnected sort of way.

Six?" Five asked sleepily, waking up at the sound of the blankets rustling next to him. He sat up and found Six with his legs hanging off the edge of the cot, barely staying upright. "Six, what're you doing?" He rubbed his eyes and tried to come to alertness more quickly.

"Ceilings. _Ceilings_," was all Six said, wavering a bit.

"What about them?" Five wondered. "Six, what about them?" he repeated when he didn't get a reply within a reasonable amount of time.

"Too much. Too much. _Bored_," Six groaned lightheartedly.

"TV?" Five suggested simply as he stood up.

Six nodded and allowed himself to be lifted up from the bed, feet feeling unstable on the floor, and walked downstairs into the living room where he plopped down on the couch when the backs of his knees bumped into it. The television was turned onto a random channel that usually played something interesting enough, though to be honest, he had no preference whatsoever in what was on so long as it wasn't another ceiling. He tipped over against Five's shoulder when the couch sank next to him and waited for three hours to fall asleep.


	10. Not Safe

When Six awoke, the human world was somewhat clear and he was only seeing bright flashes of the stitchpunk world every few seconds. He blinked and smacked his lips groggily as he surveyed his surroundings. He was lying at an uncomfortable angle with his head stuck in the corner of the couch and his legs hanging off the cushion. He sat up. Everything hurt. His skin hurt where he'd been tied and he looked down at his wrists. They were swollen purple and red. He sighed.

"Five?" he called out, hoping his friend hadn't gone to school without waking him. He checked the window. It was barely light out. He desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but he wanted to find Five even more. He got up off the couch after receiving no answer and walked toward the bathroom. The shower was on. He sighed again.

"Five?" he asked, tapping the door with his fingertips, his nails clacking on the painted wood.

"Yeah, Six?" a voice replied. It was the right person. The water shut off and there was a rustle and then the door opened to reveal Five in a towel and dripping wet. Six leaned back in surprise.

"Uhm. Hi. I woke up," he told Five's worried face, which melted into relief at the sentence. He cocked his head to the side and frowned. He'd expected annoyance at best from that answer.

"I'll be out in a minute, okay? I just gotta...finish up..." Five looked down and realized just how unclothed he was. Six followed his gaze. Before they could notice each other's red cheeks, Five slammed the door shut.

Inside the bathroom, Five took a deep breath and put the towel on the floor to sop up the water he'd dripped before the tile soaked it up. He shut his eye and cursed himself inside his head for acting like a moron and then got back in the shower, thinking the entire time of his idiocy as it ran through his head over and over again.

Outside the bathroom, Six stood straight, lowered his eyelids back to their normal positions, and stared at the door for a moment.

"Huh," he said bluntly. He then proceeded down to the kitchen and got himself a measuring cup of off-brand Fruit Loops with milk and microwaved a piece of bologna with cheese on it until the edges flipped up and formed a bowl. He brought his breakfast to the coffee table in the living room, fetched a glass of apple juice and warmed it up, and sat down on the couch to eat. He'd barely taken a bite of his bologna bowl when Five thumped cautiously down the stairs. Six looked up and watched Five in curiosity when he saw the boy staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Hi," he said. He waited. Five watched him. "Hi," he repeated.

Five snapped out of his embarrassed trance and blinked at Six. "Um! Hi..." he greeted. "Sorry about before."

"About what before?" Six inquired as he concentrated with a frown on detaching the string of cheese from either the plate or the fork of bologna it was hanging off of.

"Never mind," Five chirped and hopped the last four stairs so he could get into the kitchen. "You're really gross, you know?" he informed him.

"...Why?" Six asked, turning his frown on his friend.

"Bologna bowl and cereal?" Five chuckled. "You'll eat _anything_."

"...True. True," Six allowed with a shrug and pointedly shoved another spoonful of the brightly coloured loops into his mouth. "You forgot your eye thing," he mentioned, pointing at his own corresponding eye.

Five reached up and felt his bare scar. "Damn it. Remind me before I leave, okay? I hate ending up at school without it."

Six looked at him questioningly.

"People stare at it instead of listening to me," Five explained.

Six nodded and went back to eating.

Right before Five walked out the door, Six reached out and poked him in the eye socket. "Put your thingy on," he said.

Five glared at him, huffed, dropped his backpack on the floor, and walked up the stairs without encouraging the small sniggers escaping Six's mouth.

Six hesitated as he reached out to turn the knob that would allow him to enter his old house. Five wasn't with him. Two wasn't with him. No one was with him. But he _needed_ to make sure his drawings were okay. He'd spent all morning in the stitchpunk world for this.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to calm himself. It would be okay. No one was home. The car was gone, it was the middle of the school day, and his parents were both at work. Nothing bad could happen.

He opened his eyes and a shiver ran down his spine. _Unless they were lying in wait for him to walk in so they could drug him and make sure he was never able to leave again. _He imagined the scene and felt sick.

But no, he wouldn't be scared. He squared his shoulders and put on his tough face. He would do it. He had his bag in his hand. He had his new prepaid phone in his pocket. He _would_ go in and get his stuff. It was _his_ after all.

He nodded and reached out to open the door before he lost his rapidly diminishing last nerve.

He took a step in and froze, waiting for something or someone to pop out of the shadows and grab him. Nothing. He took another step. Still good. Another step. He sighed in relief and started walking normally to his room, pushing the door shut behind himself.

"Six?"

He froze again, panicking so much that he couldn't breathe. He watched his dad walk out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

"Six! Hey, man!" the man greeted with a smile and a happy chuckle.

_Or an evil chuckle as he sees his chance to capture me,_ Six thought to himself. He glowered at his former guardian and started edging along the wall toward him so he could get to the stairs behind the threat.

"Six, come on..." his dad sighed like his son was being utterly ridiculous.

Six felt mildly embarrassed. "Hhhi..." he said as he came to a slow halt, elongating the H thanks to the fear squishing the air from his lungs when it got the chance.

"So what's up, man? You comin' home?" his dad inquired as he leaned on the hand he had pressed between his tailbone and the wall, lifting a soda can to his mouth. He tipped his head back and took a sip, but kept his eyes on the teen in front of him.

"N-no..." Six answered hesitantly, his voice raised at the end as he wondered whether he should go with the truth. Maybe if he pretended to be willing, he could trick his dad into trusting him enough to not drug him.

"Six, stop that. Come here," his dad said softly as he pushed off the wall and walked forward. He saw Six try to duck away, but he caught him and pulled him forward into a gentle hug before he could.

Six froze. His dad was being nice to him. Not that he wasn't before. Well, when he saw him. But he never went out of his way to hug him before. Not unless Six hugged him first. Which would then put his mom on edge thinking he was going to freak out and the next hint of life he showed got him a pill. Which had been fine before-normal, even. But now he knew something different. He knew it could be better. And he _really_ didn't want to go back.

As it was, he relaxed into the warmth and brought his hands up between his chest and his dad's ribs, leaning into him. He sighed.

His dad was gone suddenly and he looked up to find him beckoning him into the kitchen. He followed and sat down at the table while his dad got him an orange soda from the refrigerator. The man joined him, sitting across the table, and plonked the can down in front of him, opening it for him one-handedly and then turning it around.

"So then...tell me what's this all about, huh? Why'd you leave?" his dad questioned, but in a nonthreatening and interested sort of way.

"Uhm..." Six whispered with just a hint of voice, his eyes flickering up before he looked at the can and reached forward for it. "They're nice there," he said and quickly took a sip, occupying himself so he wouldn't have to endure the anticipation of rebuke.

"So? We're nice here, aren't we?" his dad returned, still not even defensive, let alone resorting to offense.

"It's not-uh. I'm allowed to talk there," Six elaborated slightly. He still didn't feel comfortable speaking in this house. It put him on edge, made him wonder if his mom was going to pop up and sedate him.

"You can't talk here?" the man asked curiously, eyebrows raised in slight doubt.

Six swallowed, licked his lips, and shook his head, staring at the can he was holding to the right of himself in the air. "N-no. No, not without getting drugged," he replied, braving a chance look at his dad before staring at the can again as he set it down on the table. His dad didn't say anything for a long time.

"...Do you remember how it was before the pills?" the man asked quietly.

"It's like that now," Six replied. "The pills were for you, not for me," he stated, a hint of challenge in his tone.

"You hurt yourself. You'd tear yourself up and you landed yourself in the hospital twice," his dad excused, but Six wasn't going to take it. He had a voice and he was damn well going to use it now!

"Then why can they do it without drugging me?" he demanded. "Why is it that they haven't had to send me to a hospital yet?"

His dad looked mildly surprised.

"Yeah, didn't think I could speak in full sentences, _did you?_" he sneered. "Well I'm allowed now and you can't do anything about it! I can scream, I can talk, I can rant about anything I want, and _no one_ tries to sedate me for it! I can fall into a vision and I can lose control and _it doesn't matter_ to them! They put up with me! They help me! They don't try to shut me down or block me out!" he screamed, gaining speed as he went. He hadn't even noticed himself standing up until he slammed his chair into the table and stomped off to his room.

Or he would have. If his dad hadn't caught him by the forearm and pulled into another hug. Unlike the other one, though, this one had a hand pressing his head in and an arm around his lower back keeping him from running away.

"That wasn't what we wanted, Six," his dad said lowly but firmly.

"Well that's how it ended up, didn't it," Six snarled quietly, angrily, against his chest to the side. His dad let him push back a little and look up at him

"We just didn't know how to- How _do_ they stop you?" the man questioned abruptly, his entire mood changing to curious, but he didn't release him. He let Six stand back a bit further though.

"They tie me down and let me go at it," Six said with a slightly placated frown. He'd gotten his word in. And someone from his...he hesitated to say _real_...family had listened.

"They what again?" his dad asked as if he hadn't heard, using one hand to push his ear forward in a silly way as he stuck his chin out and blinked down at his son.

"They take ropes. And put them around my limbs. And sit on me. And let me have the vision," Six drew out slowly like his father was an idiot, eyes wide and face tilted down to exaggerate them. He held up his wrist as proof.

His dad looked concerned and released him to grab his arm and keep it in place so he could get a closer look at the area.

"Does this hurt?" he asked in a worried tone as he examined the slightly swollen, bruised, and rope-burned flesh.

"Of course. But it's not drugs," Six replied and tried to yank his hand down to his side. His dad just let it go and caught the other one, sliding his sleeve back and peering closely at it.

"Do they just do your wrists, or...?" he enquired in an interested tone.

"No. That wouldn't do anything. They just-" Something dawned on him. His dad was trying to get information on how to restrain him. Now that they didn't have the pills...

Six snapped his mouth shut and twisted away from his father, a defensive glare on his face.

"Don't. You. Dare," he growled, the threat more than implied. His dad looked taken aback, genuinely surprised at his reaction.

"What-? I'm not going to- _What?_" he asked, perplexed by his son's sudden attitude change. He seemed so innocent that Six relaxed a little and felt somewhat guilty about his actions.

"Um. You're not going to tie me up and throw me in the attic?" he returned nervously.

"Uh. _No_?" the man said and for all the world wanted to add in, _duh_. His expression showed it well enough though, and he would have felt silly overdoing it.

"Oh. Okay then," Six nodded awkwardly. "Then. Uhm. They tie my hands to my shoulders, my elbows to my sides, my knees together and my ankles together, and then Five sits on my stomach and someone holds my feet down," he listed off quickly.

"So then they don't last as long now, or..." his dad wondered.

"No, they do. Well. I think so. Last time was almost an hour and a half," Six shrugged. Suddenly he wondered if he was a burden. Then he mentally did just what Two would do if he told him, and slapped himself up the head.

"And they just..._huh_," his dad said, opening his mouth to fiddle with his back tooth using his tongue, stepping one foot forward to lean on his other one, put his hands on his hips, and frowned up at the corner of the ceiling. "But it does, I mean, it injures you, though."

"W'll..._yeah_..." Six said dubiously, wondering where this was going.

"But you still think it's better than pills?" the man inquired, looking at him with eyebrows raised.

"Uh huh," Six nodded dumbly, keeping his eyes on his dad just in case he tried something. He was somewhat sure the man was going very rapidly insane.

"So if we agreed to do that, you would move back in?" the man questioned in what Six was sure he thought was a reasonable way.

"No," he answered coldly, his eyes going flat. The last thing he wanted was to let his old family touch him like _that. _His dad watched him for a second before shrugging and taking another swig of his Coke.

"Suit yourself," he said, but he didn't seem mad in the least. Just...oddly accepting. It unnerved Six to no end.

"Okay, then...I'll just...go...get some stuff...from my room..." he told him awkwardly, pointing his bag at the stairs.

"Say bye to me before you go, okay?" his dad said, looking right at him. "And I'm sorry you had to live like that, y'know? I didn't realize you were...more..._alert_...than you seemed. And I never meant to make you afraid to be here."

"...'Kay," Six nodded.

"And neither did you mom," the man added. Six gave him a severely doubting look at that.

"Mom wanted me to shut up and stay in my room every hour of the day and you know it. She _never_ missed a chance to shove a pill down my throat and toss me up there. Say what you want, but I know when someone has it in for me. I might have been worried about you, but I wouldn't have stayed if she'd popped up when I came in. I'd have been halfway home before she said my name," Six scoffed in mild chagrin, shifting his weight to one side and crossing his arms, a trait he'd picked up from the very person he was so much terrified of. He continued, "If she ever caught me talking like this, she'd have me halfway to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds faster than you could snap your fingers."

His dad gave him a look, nodded his head at the doorway behind him, and pointed the two fingers he'd been using to scratch his temple at the same place.

Six felt his heart stop in his chest as his blood froze. He felt himself shiver from the sudden cold and knew his face had gone white. He stiffly turned around, his entire body shaking, and caught sight of his mom leaning in the doorway, her arm crossed over her chest and her finger on her lips. There were tears streaming down her face, but he took no heed of that.

"Shit. _Fuck_," he breathed. "Don't you dare touch me," he said as loudly as he could manage, which was barely a whisper, and ran out the second exit to the stairs, making a mad dash up to his hall. He fumbled the key, but was able to get it into the hole on the second try after remembering to take it off his neck. The stairs slammed into the floor, bounced up, and he was up them before they could unfold. Grabbing the handle and forcing the entryway back up, he locked it again and pushed his bag up on his shoulder as he looped the key back over his head.

He quickly unpinned his most precious drawings from the wall, rolled them into tubes, and shoved them into the bag with a little trouble. Once he was sure they would stay in, he ran over and grabbed his necklace with the charm on it that looked like a giant, gaudy chrome ball from his velvet snap-closure box on the dresser, and snatched his handmade crazy quilt that he'd gotten for two dollars at a garage sale from the otherwise bare mattress.

"They really didn't know what they had on them," he muttered to himself, unsure why he was focusing on the old bargain when he was about to be taken captive and tortured by his human reality worst fear and enemy. He wondered for a split second if he was remembering her worse than was true, but he blocked the thought from his mind. Either there wasn't impending danger or there was, and he'd be certain to stay on the safe side.

He stopped short at the door. "Can't go back down there," he hissed, his throat making his voice harsher than he intended. He spun on his toe and heel toward the window. "Thank you, god of exigent escapes." He ran over and lifted the window with more strength than strictly needed, threw his bag out, and jumped onto the latticework, taking one large step before jumping down the rest of the way. He landed hunched over, his hand in the middle of his bag's strap already, and scooped it up onto his wrist before making his daring getaway over the fence and down the street. By the time he got back to Five's house, he thought his heart would explode and he entered his current home bent over with his hand on his chest as his backpack slipped off his shoulder and caught in the crook of his elbow, jerking his hand slightly, before he replaced it.

He gasped in a breath and weakly slammed the door behind himself as he shuffled over into the kitchen to get a glass of lukewarm water, unwilling to wait for the tap to run cold.

Having to drink slowly so he could still pant his air and keep from inhaling the liquid while he did so, he had barely finished and turned to fill his cup again when there came a knock on the door. Needless to say, he froze. They knocked again.

"Six, open up! She's not here!" he heard his dad's muffled voice calling. Immediately, without even glancing out the window to see if he was telling the truth, Six ran to the phone and speed dialed Five.

"Help!" was all he was able to whimper before his dad noticed that the door was unlocked and slowly opened it to peek inside.

"Six?" he asked and stepped fully inside when he saw his son.

Six dropped the landline and flinched when it clattered against the wall where it swung on its spiral cord. He couldn't help it-he was panicking. His chest got tight and he fisted his hand in his shirt over it as he backed up, tripping on every other step. His dad kept advancing even after his bottom had bumped the counter and he shut his eyes tight as he sank down onto the floor.


	11. That's Me

He knew this was the worst possible time to fall into a vision, but there it was, and there he had. His sight went from his dad walking towards him with calming hands held out to Two digging around in his stomach so he could tighten the bolts on his shiny new parts. It was uncomfortable at best and painful at not even the worst.

He couldn't hold back his wincing and whimpers at every surprising pinch and grind. However, it was over in less than forty minutes and he was able to shake off the shock long enough to force himself back into his intended reality.

For a moment, he forgot what had been happening before his attacking trip and he started to describe his experience.

"You'll be happy to know, Two, that Five finally found me some-JESUS CHRIST!" he screamed at the top of his lungs and tried to shoot back from his dad who had apparently been holding him against his chest the entire time. He glanced around wildly for some sort of weapon before realizing it would be a bit useless what with his dad having complete control over his upper body. "I wouldn't mind if you let me go, you know," he squeaked in what he hoped was a pleasing tone with a nervous smile.

"Are you going to run away again?" his dad asked in a somewhat condescending voice.

Six laughed a couple times and awkwardly glanced around for a weapon again. The phone hanging off the jack was making the most annoying noise, he thought to himself absently as his eyes passed over it.

"Your mom's not here," the man said after incorrectly interpreting his son's uneasy quirks and twitches.

"_Yeeah_, I was looking for something to beat you over the head with after I get away..." Six murmured, too distracted and high on adrenaline to realize that his thoughts were being verbalized.

"I have half a mind to keep you here then," his dad frowned, more amused than miffed.

Six didn't think anything of his dad somehow being able to read his mind and continued to look around the room until his eyes landed on the knife sticking out off the counter above him. "Huh. How 'bout that," he muttered and tried to reach up for it.

His dad quickly grabbed his arm and forced it back down. "Stop that," he chided as if Six were a kid picking his nose or something comparably mild.

Six looked up at his face, made a very feeble attempt to struggle, and fell lax in his arms. "So. Uh. How's it going?" he asked, trying to seem amenable.

"Six..." his dad frowned and sighed in resigned frustration. He'd never known his son to be so...strangely..._strange._

"Heh. Would it help if I said I won't run?" Six offered hopefully.

His dad pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled before rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "You know you will," he said as he looked back down at him.

"That's neither here nor there." Six smiled hopefully up at him. "Really, it'd be a show of good faith on your part." He was trying his best to talk like he had the confidence of Two, and he thought it was working rather well.

"Six..." his dad sighed, obviously intending to finish his thought. "Why did you ever act like you were half brain-dead and half deaf?"

"Silly me, I got into this habit of losing consciousness every time I so much as raised my voice," Six said with a smile that could have been cheerful if the words hadn't betrayed the true emotion behind them.

His dad looked away, blinked rapidly as he looked up, and then turned to face him again. "Are you really that scared of her?"

Six stopped inhaling. "I'm terrified. _Terrified_," he breathed as a tremble ran through his body and he tightened his hold on his dad's hand temporarily. "I'm so scared of her that my heart stops beating at the thought of seeing her again," he admitted softly and continued in utmost sincerity, "Those pills are the nightmare I wake up from. Wake up screaming in the middle of the night."

His dad curled down over him and his embrace changed from restraint to a desperate hug. "I am _so_ sorry, Six," he apologized, his voice rough and muffled. Six could feel his shirt starting to stick to his chest from hot breath and tears. "You never...I mean..." he sniffed and rose up above him again, his face bright red and shining with saltwater.

"I told you constantly. _Constantly_," Six stressed, unable to be angry with a man in his state. "I _begged_ you. I begged you! Every time I tried, she would-" he stopped as he choked up.

"But you didn't...you never just...how come you never told anyone else? Anyone who would help?" his dad questioned in disbelief.

Six smiled sadly up at him. "I told Five," he said simply. His dad finally loosened his grip and Six slid out of his lap and knelt in front of him, wrapping his arms around the shocked man's neck and staying like that with him for what had to be a good part of the rest of the hour.

Finally he pulled away and sat back on his feet, leaving his hands up on either side of his dad's neck. "It's all real, you know. All real," he grinned excitedly.

"What is?" his dad asked, still in a bit of a daze.

"My visions! My visions," Six told him happily. "Five and Two can see them too. They made dolls and drew pictures...it all looks exactly like when I fall." He laughed softly. "They're better at drawing than me by a ton."

"I never... What exactly do you see?" his dad asked curiously.

Six beamed and got up. "Come on. Come on! I'll show you!" he urged joyfully, pulling his dad up by the hand, bouncing on his toes as he waited for the man to adjust. He grabbed his hand again once he could stand straight and dragged him out the door to the next house over. He reached down and pulled the garage door up and pointed at the wall, positioning his dad accordingly. "See? That's the view from the balcony," Six informed him with a calmed sigh as he surveyed the scene from what he'd thought was his own, personal, desperately lonely world. He ran up and put his hand on the image of the telescope, poking it with his finger a few times. "Five and Two built this there. It's really there! You can look through it and everything! And it works!"

"Six..." his dad began, looking quite completely overwhelmed. "Six, before you left...you ran to Five's house because you thought he was hurt, right?"

Six nodded.

"And then you got here and...and he was, right?" He was still staring in bewilderment at the drawing.

Six nodded again.

The man looked at him in quiet confusion tinged with fear that wasn't directed at him. "How did you know that, Six?"

"It's all real. The whole time it was," Six said earnestly and contently. Finally, someone he'd always wanted to believe him _did_.

"And when have your fits..." his dad trailed off expectantly.

Six's expression turned blank before he donned a sour look. "That's real too."

"And it...what's happening when that...happens?"

Six shook off his discomfort and stared straight back at the man. "Well the time before last, my innards were being torn apart, ripped out, and eaten by a giant robot parrot sort of thing," he said in much too conversational a tone for his dad's peace of mind.

"And this last one? In the kitchen?" he asked, feeling more than sick.

"After the whole incident, Seven brought me back to the sanctuary and Five dismantled a whole bunch of things we really needed and Two pieced me back together just enough to keep me alive. Three and Four went out with Eight to find me some better spare parts while Five and Two continued tearing the place apart. This _last _time was after they found all the shiny new pieces for me and Two was in the process of rebuilding me. Believe me, it was a pleasant turn of events from all the ones leading up to it," Six said and huffed out a breath in joking relief. As his dad swallowed that pill with much difficulty, he ran up and grabbed his hand, tugging him over to the workbench. He opened up the drawers and took out the box labeled _6_.

"What's that?" the man asked as he came back to reality.

"This-is _me_. My other world me. My _stitchpunk_ me. Two made it for me. He made everyone else too," Six grinned at being able to show off his friend's work.

His dad held it with such care that you'd think it was made of glass and turned it over in his hands. He examined it for minutes before looking up at Six.

"This is you?" he asked in muted amazement.

"Mm-hm," Six nodded, hands behind his back and bottom lip between his teeth. His eyes were shining at such a measure his dad had never seen before. "And look-" Six said and pointed his finger at the tiny zipper in the side of the doll, his other hand still resting at the small of his back. "It's all perfectly replicated inside. These are my old parts, but still."

"It's..._this..._is _you..._" his dad repeated, pointing at the doll in his hand.

Six nodded again and took the liberty of unzipping his doll self. "See?" He pointed and grinned up at his dad's unbelieving expression.

His dad looked down. "And you're sure this isn't some sort of trick they're trying to pull over on you?" he asked in worried desperation. This couldn't possibly be true. It couldn't happen. He couldn't have missed so much of his son that this entire month had happened.

"Mm-mm," Six smiled cheerfully up at him, not a doubt to be seen anywhere in his body.

His dad leaned over and pulled him into a one-armed hug, still staring at the doll in his hand as he rested his chin on his son's head. He pulled back and tousled Six's hair. "You know, I've seen punk, but this is not how you pull it off," he teased at the half-chopped head with dusky hair so long it was beginning to gather into wispy Shirley Temple curls on just one side. It was incredibly soft and thin. "You should grow it out more," he suggested, knowing that his wife had never allowed him to have long hair on the assumption that he wouldn't know how to take care of it.

Six laughed and held up the doll, wagging its yarn-topped head at him. "You just think the doll is cuter than me!" he giggled before turning around to the drawer and gently stuffing the idol of himself back in its box.

"Hey, lemme see the other ones," the man requested. Once again, his son beamed at him as he enthusiastically got another doll out and described the specifics of it to him.

Six was just finishing explaining the hoods on 3 and 4 to his dad when Five came running up to him, out of breath and wide-eyed.

"What's going on, Six? I saw that I missed a call from you and I tried to get back to you but all the phones kept going straight to voicemail-...Who is this?" the one-eyed teen questioned, pointing a thumb at the stranger standing with Six in Two's garage playing with the 3 stitchpunk doll.

"He's my _dad_," Six exulted, teeth practically gleaming in the sun as he took the doll away from the man to set it back in the shoebox next to the 4 one.

"And he's here because...?" Five trailed off, nervously inching between the two, facing Six's father and nowhere near succeeding in his attempt at a pretense of bravery.

"He's been explaining the...stitchpunk?" He looked behind Five to Six, who nodded distractedly as he replaced all the dolls carefully in the bench. "-world to me," the man finished. "Oh! Um," he quickly wiped his hand off on his jeans, having been leaning on the sawdust-y surface next to him, and offered it to this new boy. "Five? Esha," he introduced and then shrugged. "My mom was a hippie," he said as if that explained everything.

Five took the proffered token of acceptance and nodded at him in suspicion. "He...lived with you? With his mom?"

"I-..._yeah_..." the man nodded uncomfortably. "I didn't know about-! Uh. I wasn't home most of the time. I swear, I didn't know it was so bad. I only ever saw him about a quarter of an hour a day before I had to leave for work or get some sleep," he pleaded. "Not that that should-! I mean. Just. Yeah," he stuttered more guiltily than Six's mom had ever even thought about pretending to be.

"He has three jobs," Six bragged, squeezing under Five's arm and popping up so it stayed around his shoulders. He handed him a giant wrench. "That doesn't fit anymore. Drawer. In the drawer."

"Six, are you...?" Five started, frowning. He finally gets home and what happens?

"And now...that you're here...I'm gonna...bye," Six got out breathlessly before wavering as his eyes went blank. Luckily he had positioned himself beforehand for Five to catch him.

"Six! Six? What's happened to him? Is he going to have another fit?" Esha panicked, grabbing a hold of his son's shirtfront.

Five sighed in annoyance. What could he say? He still didn't like the guy all that much. "He's just out for a while. He must have been fighting to stay here this whole time for you. He'll be back soon. Probably not all the way, but..." He shrugged. "That's just how Sixes work sometimes."

"You-you're sure he'll be all right?" the man worried, smoothing down Six's shirt and standing back a bit from him, though he kept watching him like a hawk.

"He's fine...I'd say...ninety-five-percent of the time. So far. It might be more. He said he didn't used to have this many bad days. I think something's going on over there. I can feel it at night. It's...foreboding. At best," Five said difficultly as he walked Six out of the garage and over towards his own house. "Can you get that?" he asked, gesturing to the door.

Esha nodded and pulled it closed before catching up. He kept trying to catch Six when he tripped despite his son already being held by Five's hands.

"I got him. Don't worry," the one-eyed teen assured him and the man became more and more endeared to him with every upset step.

"I don't mean to invite myself in, but-"

"You can stay," Five agreed quickly and tipped his head at the door impatiently, waiting for the man to fumble it open in his distressed state. Once they got inside, he noticed the phone was hanging on the wall by its cord and sighed. The phone bill was going to be just a mite higher than usual, he guessed sardonically. "Here-take him over to the couch," the teen grunted and pushed Six over to his dad so he could go fix the messy kitchen up and make the house a little more presentable for when his parents realized they had company that wasn't Two.

"You know, I hate to say it...but this is more like the Six I know. _Knew_. Before," Esha corrected himself as he led his son over to the couch and let him fall onto it, trying to cushion the brunt of the blow for him before sitting down next to him. He smiled down at Six when he leaned his head on his shoulder and wrapped his arm around him to rub his shirtsleeve a few times.

Five came into the living room and organized the papers on the table before flopping himself down on the chair behind him. "Yeah, he trained himself to stay like that before because he said it was better than sitting upstairs alone all the time, especially since he wasn't allowed to make any noise," he related to the man. It made him feel satisfied to see the guilty flash of pain in Six's dad's eyes when he looked down at his son.

Five waited for a reply and turned on the TV when he realized he wasn't going to get one. They watched one or two shows before Six blinked and looked around the room.

"Hey, Six. You good?" Five asked gently, waving to get his friend's attention in case his vision was still muddy with mixed realities.

"Mm...yeah..." Six yawned and scooted away from his dad only to flop down onto his lap and pull the throw blanket over himself, snuggling down to watch TV it seemed like, until he closed his eyes.

"Six! Don't _go _to sleep! You're gonna be up all night again!" Five huffed, snapping his fingers a few times. He'd only gotten five hours of sleep over the past two nights. He couldn't help being a little grumpy.

"Mm...I'll just store up time..." Six assured him and rubbed his face on his dad's knee, closing his eyes again.

"_No_ you _won't!_ If you don't let me get some sleep for once, I'm sending you down here to watch nighttime TV until five am when I _won't_ make you breakfast," Five frowned.

"I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet..." Six assured him sleepily, flapping his hand at him a few times, never opening his eyes. "And I want chocolate pancakes with chocolate syrup," he added.

"Deal. But only if you let me sleep for at _least _six hours tonight," Five acquiesced, calming down once he found a bribe that would work. "I fell asleep in PE of all things thanks to you today," he sniffed.

Six didn't answer him.


	12. Much Swearing

About two hours later, neither of them had moved from their spots. Esha didn't want to disrupt Six and Five didn't want to leave Six alone with his father. The contest was over, however, when Six began to twitch and whine in his sleep restlessly.

Immediately, Five swung his legs off the armrest of the chair and walked over on his knees. He grabbed Six's shoulder and shook him, gently at first and progressing to mercilessly.

Six finally awoke and shot away from the both of them, almost falling off the other end of the couch in his haste when his hand slipped off the armrest behind him. He looked around, obviously stuck between realities, and caught a glimpse of his dad. Needless to say, he panicked.

"Six! Six, Six, Six! _Calm. Down,_" Five urged as he crawled over with his knees on the floor and his hands on the couch. He noticed Six's breathing was soon going to become an oxygen overdose, but there was no way he could get a paper bag over his face if he tried.

"Six? Hey, kiddo. C'you hear me?" Esha tried to no avail, but at least he had the sense to keep back.

"Six, listen to me. Concentrate. Choose one and don't fight it," Five instructed in a loud, clear voice. "Remember what happened before you fell asleep."

"Hey, what's up-?" came Two's voice as the sound of the door clicking open rang through the house.

Suddenly Esha was tackled off the couch with a very vicious Two on top of him.

"Wait! Wait!" Six shouted. "Wait..." He got up off the couch and reached out for Two, getting him on the third try. He pushed him away, not weakly but still only enough to indicate that he wanted him to move.

Two did, but kept his murderous glare on Six's father. "What the hell are you doing here?" he seethed, trying to ignore his stinging limbs.

"He didn't know about it apparently," Five explained, referring to the drug abuse.

"No, I knew. Just not the extent," Esha blurted out, not wanting any misunderstandings to bring trouble for him or Six later on. "And I never realized it was..._real_," he said quietly as if he were a little embarrassed to admit that he thought it was now, or maybe that he hadn't known about it in the first place. Either was just as likely as the other. "The visions, I mean."

"Six trusts him," Five added in.

Two looked over to Six, who was looking straight through him but nodding with obvious intent. He looked down at Esha, who was still on his back with his arms up in surrender, and pointed at him. "You break that trust, and I break you."

"Perfectly reasonable," Esha agreed without hesitation.

They couldn't tell whether or not he was sincere; he'd answered quickly enough that he hadn't had to consider it, but whether it was because he was telling the truth or because he would have agreed to anything at the moment was unclear.

There was a long and awkward silence before Six spoke up. "You promised me pancakes."

"It's not five am yet, Six," Five replied, untensing his shoulders and back as he leaned closer to Six behind him.

"Something else. Something else! Just...just something..." Six persisted, finally able to catch a glimpse of the right world. He looked at Five before losing it again. He snarled and reached up to rub his eyes, but it was no use. "Fuck it all..." he muttered.

"_Hey_. Language," his dad reprimanded without any force to back the words up.

"Quiet! Quiet...everyone just...shut up..." Six pleaded, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes when they obeyed. He looked up again and the image was slightly clearer and lasted a few seconds longer. Thank god the vision was just him alone in the tower or else that never would have worked. He smirked in triumph. "Got it. Wait! Damnit. Lost it. Effing mother.… Hang on..." he muttered mostly to himself. "Almost...almost..." He tried to get the two worlds to overlap like he was able to do, but usually only after he had enough time built up.

Something in the back of his mind clicked into place and he locked both worlds in sight. He stood up shakily, holding his hand out to grab Five's shoulder for balance as he rose in equal time. "Better...I'm getting better...at this..." he grinned. He looked around, but had to stop after only a moment. Having two depths to focus on was dizzying. He'd have to wait until he was sitting down to examine his surroundings to any sort of reasonable extent.

With a shake of his head and a long blink, he opened his eyes again, not wanting to risk pushing further into the human world so he could make out the table clearly for fear of a backlash. "Okay. Okay. It's not great. But it's something."

"What's going on in the other place?" Two asked curiously.

"Nothing. Nothing-just...just drawing. Really annoying. Trying out new fingers." He held them up and wiggled them in the human world for effect as he was led into the kitchen. "It's not working out." He thumped down harder than expected in the wooden chair and nearly fell off the edge before he caught himself and scooted over. Damn this depth perception. "I want you to know, Five, that I really do respect you."

"Uh. 'Kay. Why?" Five asked suspiciously, hoping his stitchpunk self wasn't walking around with lipstick on or something equally as mortifying.

"Monocular vision. I'm betting it's a lot like quadocular," he said in all seriousness. "This is getting...very difficult...to keep up...without...some extra credit points..." he warned.

"Just sink while it's peaceful," Two advised. "Better to get it done now than later. Who knows what sort of creatures await you in the future."

All the jargon was really mixing Esha up, but he didn't want to interrupt. He figured he'd just pick it up along the way. He got the gist of everything anyways.

"Pen. And paper," Six requested. Two hopped up and grabbed his notebook and a fine-point permanent marker from his satchel, placing the college-rule bound sheets on the table and taking Six's hand so he could press the pen into his palm. Six looked at and felt the edges of the paper to see what he had to work with, placed the pen to it and scribbled to make sure it would work, and said, "See you in a couple hours hopefully," before his eyes went blank and his hand started moving seemingly on its own.

Five watched him for a few minutes, along with the others, before deciding he should get something useful done. "I'm gonna make a lasagna for dinner. You staying?"

"Are you kidding me? Just make an extra pan for me," Two said and walked over to the couch, falling down on it hard and putting his feet up like he lived there. He rubbed at his still-aching joints and absently wished he'd drank more milk as a child.

"Take your shoes off, Two..." Five sighed as if he'd said it a hundred times prior, which he had.

Esha observed the various exchanges between the three and didn't realize for a few moments that Five was staring at him expectantly. "Oh, me? Uhm. Sure, why not?" he confirmed with a shrug and a nod, though he didn't seem anything but eager, which was a hard thing to pull off for that sort of reply in Five's experience. Without seeming awkward anyway.

"Right. Two, go get me some stuff," Five ordered as he took the notepad off the fridge and wrote a few things down that looked entirely unlike words in Esha's opinion, but when Two looked at it, he seemed to be able to decipher the loops and squiggles easily.

"Got it. Money," He held out his hand without looking up. "Thirty-one and sixty-two cents," he calculated in his head. "Including tax for the new spatula," he grinned smugly up at his friend as Five chuckled in amazement that never seemed to disappear completely, though Two did this all the time just to show off.

Five jumped up and grabbed an urn of all things off the top of the cupboard over the sink that had been touching the ceiling just barely. He pulled out two twenties and slapped them into Two's greedy mitts.

Esha then realized it was a beehive sort of thing that had _Money Honey_ engraved on the lid.

Two smirked as he snapped the bills between his two hands. "I'm keeping the change." With that, he ran out the door cackling. There was a muffled thud.

Five waited for it.

"...Don't trip over the grass, you idiot! I can't believe you're so stupid!" Two called back at him and they could hear him grunting in pain as he pushed himself up.

Five sniggered and turned on the hot water so he could rinse out his pots.

"...So then we put the cat in and she just freaked, you know? Wouldn't walk in it for the life of her." Two was retelling the story of the Noria Incident to Esha, who was surprisingly interested in it.

"Did you try putting edges on it to keep the water out?" he suggested.

Two stared at him for a long moment as if he were sizing the man up. "Yeah. We did," he replied in an overly thoughtful tone. But he snapped out of it quickly. "Yeah, it leaked too much and we couldn't catch the cat again, so we gave up on it. For now anyways. Bigger and better things, y'know?"

"I wish I _did_. You need to show me some of this stuff one day," Esha grinned. "I just got laid off of one of my jobs, so I have an inordinate amount of free time coming to me. I have a whole eight hours a day off now, and every Saturday."

"And that explains that for me," Two said in an unreadable tone, at least to Esha, but he wouldn't say anything more on the subject. He'd been thinking the fifteen minutes a day tops was a gross exaggeration, but what he calculated to be two full-time jobs and a part-time job he just lost, it seemed more reasonable.

"...Are you going to go back home to her?" Six asked out of the blue, none of them having noticed him come back.

Esha looked carefully at him before answering, "...I don't know yet."

Six nodded and looked up at Five. He sniffed the air and his face lit up. "Is it done yet?" he demanded eagerly.

"Not for another two hours," Five replied apologetically, not liking to see Six's happiness melt like that. "Was it all calm?"

"Yeah. I don't like 8. Jackass," Six finished under his breath. He huffed and looked back up with a deliberately placed smile on his lips as if he were consciously refusing to be upset. "But I came back when he started in on me, so it's all good."

"You really do need to work on your language, you know," Esha mentioned offhandedly.

Six stared at him, his eyes glazed over, and then he caught him again. "I like my language," he said simply, not meaning it as an argument. He turned back to Five. "I like him better as a drug-addict," he said, continuing his previous statement.

"What drugs?" Esha asked, mildly alarmed.

"Drugs. Drugs. Not real ones. Just pot," Six said before shaking his head and frowning. "Stop it," he muttered. "I need to go check it again. It wasn't enough," he announced before his eyes blanked again.

Five barely had time to start stirring the sauce again when Six jumped. He whipped around to make sure he was okay and found him clutching at his ribs. About to run over, he stopped when he saw Six freeze and start to blink rapidly as his heavy breathing was interrupted with interspersed gulps.

"Okay. _Ow,_" Six groaned, trying to stay lighthearted.

"What?" Two questioned as he got out of his chair and walked over to rub Six's shoulder, hoping to comfort him.

"He threw me off the Sanctuary apparently. So much for all the repairs. _Damnit_." He gnashed his teeth and stood up suddenly, knocking his chair back a few inches.

Two stepped back in a hurry. "You gonna be okay?" He was worried about Six's mental state and was about to be more justified than he wanted to be.

Six started pacing across the floor, clutching at his hair. "Eff, eff, eff, eff, eff..." he kept repeating to himself before suddenly punching the wall so hard he left a hole in it. He didn't seem to react if there was any pain caused by the act. "I just got _done_ with this shit!" He dropped to the floor and curled up, rocking back and forth in a huddled ball with his fists gripping handfuls of hair as he pressed his face into his arms. "I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't _LIKE THIS!_" he snapped, slamming his hands into the tile floor. He seethed at Five. "_Why_ can't it be Eight? _Why_ is it _me?_ I _just_-want to _stay_-in _this_-_world_," he bit out. He pushed himself off the floor and stalked over to his companion. "_Fix it already! You're so goddamn good at fixing everything else, so effing FIX IT!_" he screamed from only five feet away.

"Six..." Five breathed. "...I wouldn't even know where to begin." He feared the response to that.

Six sighed, his body relaxed, and he walked slowly over to the couch to sit down. He put his hands over his head and his forehead on his knees. "I know that," he mumbled. "I know that already." His voice cracked and they could see him shaking. "I just want it to stop," he whined. "Just _help_."

Five tapped Two on the shoulder and gestured to the pot that needed to be stirred constantly. In the long run, unimportant, but he was worried it would break Six into pieces if one more thing went wrong for him.

He walked quickly into the living room and kneeled down before Six, moving his arms out of the way so he could make him sit up a bit higher. "I'll try, okay? But I can't promise," he told him softly with raised eyebrows and a wide eye, his chin tilted down.

Six sniffed and nodded at him.

"**Kiss 'im already!**" came an amused taunt from the kitchen.

Five looked over and saw Two standing with his hands cupped around his mouth like a megaphone before the teen dissolved into laughter. "Keep stirring," he ordered sternly. He turned back to Six, who promptly burst into a giggle fit and tipped over on the couch, holding his stomach. Five looked at the empty spot in front of himself and sighed, eye closing in relieved exasperation. He pushed himself up and walked into the kitchen again, rubbing his brow as he felt a slight headache coming on. "You're both insane..." he muttered.

"Wait- So- _What?_" Esha stuttered, looking between the three of them in confusion.

"This is what's called hysteria. The eye of the storm. He lost his head. It was the last straw. A flash in the pan," Five listed off in a flat tone as he took the spoon from Two and pushed him away. He fell onto the floor, grunted, and kept right on sniggering.

Esha would have offered the pills if he didn't know how much Six hated them. He exhaled through a tight throat and put his elbow on his table so he could brace his chin on his fist as he turned and looked in worry over at Six, who was starting to calm down.

Six turned onto his back, his legs still hanging off the couch at the knees, and sighed heavily as a contented calm came over him. He could feel it about to shatter any second and desperately tried to hang onto it. "I'm gonna put in a movie," he called out to Five and got up off the couch.

"Brush your teeth with Ajax! Ajax dental cream! It cleans your birds! While it cleans your wheels!" Two suddenly yelled and ran over to the DVD cabinet, pushing Six away as he grabbed a case, shook the DVDs out onto the carpet, picked one up at random, and shoved it into the player. "Five totally thinks Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were in love!" he exclaimed as he pushed play.

"They _were!_" Five yelled from the stove.

"Yeah! Like you and Six are!" Two teased, waiting for a reaction.

"They were..." Five mumbled defensively.

Two burst into raucous laughter again. "You hear that, Six?"

"Hear what?" Six asked cluelessly, setting Two off again.

"Oh my god!" Two gasped and choked, red faced. "You guys _suck!_"

Six turned to Five. "What? What did you say?" he questioned innocently.

"Nothing," Five replied and devoted himself to stirring the sauce, refusing to look at any of them.

Esha halfway wished he hadn't decided to stay for dinner and wisely stayed silent throughout the ordeal.

An hour later found the four sitting in the living room, the three youngest squished together on the couch and Six's father on the chair, each of them with a huge bowl of pasta. Five's parents walked in at five-oh-four on the dot to Five pointing with his fork at the screen shouting, "No, watch it! Watch this part! Shh! Look! That's the fourth time they kissed in this episode!" as Two and Six guffawed next to him with their mouths open and full.

Esha waved at the two adults calmly, noticing them due to his preference of watching the three over watching the television. He gestured to the cackling triplets and assured them, "I swear they're completely sober. I have no idea what's going on."

"Okay..." Darlene nodded and squinted a bit at him. "And you are?"

"Oh! Oh, I'm Esha! Six's dad!" the man introduced quickly, rushing to set his bowl down, wiping his fingers on his pants as he stood before offering his hand to her and then the man he assumed was Five's father. "Listen, thank you so much for having him here! I had no idea about-! I only spend less than two hours a week with him and I just found out about this whole thing and I'm just so thankful for this all," he gushed as he vigorously shook their hands with both of his. He was amazed, truly. He'd never seen his son so...happy before. "He seems so much better here."

"I-Well, we do what we can," Darlene nodded in some confusion.

"Actually it's mostly Five who does things with him; we just provide the roof," Scott told him, gesturing to his son who was still oblivious to everything happening in the room except for the television screen.

Darlene looked into the kitchen to see what Five had made for supper when she spotted the giant hole in the wall. "What did you guys do?" she gasped as she went over to examine it, rubbing around the edges of the broken plaster.

"Sorry!" Six called out distractedly, still trying to pay attention to the show. "I had a mental breakdown after I got pushed off a ledge and got paralyzed after I just got my body back!"

"I'll fix it for you tomorrow, Mrs. H!" Two waved from the couch, facing away from them.

Darlene sighed, but knew he'd honor his word, so she let it go.

"Lasagna's in the oven!" Five just barely got out before bursting into cackles of amusement.

"Um. Not to pry or anything...but your mailbox says your last name is Jensen," Esha pointed out awkwardly.

"I have no idea where he got it from," Darlene sighed again and walked into the kitchen to get something to eat before her head exploded.

"Think puppets and Mexico!" Two yelled.

Darlene pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes as she looked down and sighed again. 


	13. How Enlightening

It had been months since anything had really happened in the other world, but they all felt it coming. There was this feeling of something growing, this pressure expanding inside their minds and their chests, as if something were fighting to escape. But Six had been affected the worst. He'd been getting into all sorts of trouble, waking up in the night, talking nonstop for hours until he was forced into the woods away from Darlene when she couldn't stand it any more, refusing to be quiet in school and earning himself detentions at least once or twice a week.

The other Numbered Children were having a hard time of it as well, though, but they were able to hold themselves back more easily. There was a definite tenseness in the air around them, and while others shied away, they had grown more as a group. They tended to gather in the field often now when Two was at work building, which he had thrown himself into with Five and Six, for some reason avoiding what was so blatantly bothering them. Every once in a while though, after everyone had left, the three closest, and occasionally One, would discuss quite seriously what was happening to them, worrying and a bit awed by the epic feeling it gave off.

They weren't even sure the others knew what was going on, as they always kept to themselves concerning the dreams and the visions. Perhaps they thought themselves insane, or maybe they were just dreams to them, but something was definitely happening to them. Six knew it. He could feel it. A sort of energy emanating from each one of them...

Six woke up on the couch after being kicked out of Five's bedroom by both the owner of it, and the owner of the house, for being too loud. He was panting heavily unable to catch his breath. The timeline had skipped around again in his vision link to the other reality and he'd seen himself and felt himself die. His soul had floated out of the talisman and then it rose up in the sky only to rain back down over the Earth.

Fast forward through the ages, the eras, the endless millennia, and suddenly he stopped in real time and snapped awake.

"It was in the past," he breathed in excitement. "I can use it now." He grinned in manic excitement and launched off the couch, taking the stairs two at a time and bursting through Five's door.

"Six, _please_..." Five moaned as he turned his head on the pillow to face him before hugging it to his face and huffing.

"I _saw_ it," Six whispered, eyes wide and body shaking as he smiled toothily. He ran over to his bag of belongings and lifted the horribly ugly necklace he'd brought from home out by the chain. He'd had no idea why he needed it before, but now he knew why he had to keep it so desperately. He tried to open it one last time and was unable to hold back an ecstatic squeak when it worked as if it had never been stuck closed.

His jaw went slack when he saw what he now knew would be inside and he lifted the talisman gingerly out of its prison. With his eyes closed, he remembered the combination to open it and took off his shirt. He placed it in the middle of his chest and pressed the doors in order.

It hurt. God, it was agonizing. Everything turned green. His head felt like it was about to explode as every emotion he'd ever felt from his stitchpunk self flowed into him along with billions more sensations. No memories to connect them to, but he didn't need that to know what it was. He could feel it struggling to get out of him now, deep in his chest.

The extra soul he had bound to him.

With a pained gasp, he closed the talisman and jerked it off himself, accidentally sending it flying across the floor. He looked up, panting and trembling in shock, and saw Five staring at him. He grinned an open-mouth grin so he could still breathe. "It works," he said simply.

"What...the hell...was that, Six?" Five murmured, stricken and afraid of the feeling permeating the air around him.

"The past. The past. It's all in the past. It happened before us-before anything!" Six told him in a breathy and skipping voice.

"Make sense, Six," Five ordered with a frown as he shoved the blankets off his body and sat up on the bed, leaning forward over his knees to peer at the metal charm cautiously.

"Everything! All of it! It happened before time began! It began it all! But the souls are trapped. Over time, they were born again and again, and now they're stuck in us!" Six gasped as something dawned on him. "Those people! In the field! They must have been trying to start it again! They were trying to put us back together!" He breathed in and frowned in displeasure. "But if that happened, everything would die again. No, I don't like those people." He looked up at Five to see what he thought about them, but was disappointed to find only a perplexed expression on his face.

"Six, I don't-... What's going on?" Five stressed, begging for some sort of answer to that horrible green light, the memory of which was unsettling his stomach and pumping liquid fear through his veins.

"_Everything_," Six pleaded with him to understand. "All of it! The visions, the dreams, the memories! It all began with _him._ The _scientist!_ The scientist who destroyed the world! And now we have to _free_ them. Free them from us! They're trapped! They're trapped! They're us and they can't escape!"

"But I don't-_No, Six_," Five barked as he crab-walked backwards over the bed away from the boy holding the talisman out to him, its chain swinging threateningly from his fingers.

"_Please_. Trust me. Trust me," Six urged, crawling forward onto and over the blankets until he had a terrified Five trapped against the wall. He reached out and flipped the hem of Five's shirt up only for it to snap back into place. "Take it off."

Five whined, but did so. What else could he do? He winced as the metal was pressed against his skin and the buttons pushed in sequential order.

And then he was lost. There was nothing and everything, but none of it made sense. He could feel more than he'd ever felt before, but there was no rhyme or reason. He could see in his mind's eye a soul bound with ropes sleeping inside of him and the urge to untie it took over him, but when he reached out for it, it was too much. He couldn't take it. He was being crushed. It was like the soul knew what to do, but he couldn't say it.

Six watched as Five clawed at his own chest, trying to get the medallion off himself but having no idea how to. He instantly reached forward and shut it for him, picking it off his chest and holding it tightly in his palm as Five came to, shivering with the same shock that Six had felt barely minutes before.

Five gasped in air, crawling onto his knees to position his lungs so they could expand wider. He looked up through his eyelashes at Six. "We have to save them," he coughed and choked out, his throat sore and his body aching. "We _have_ to find a way. It was _right_ there, but I couldn't quite..._tap into_ it. But I _know_ how to fix everything. I _do_."

Six beamed and grabbed his friend by the wrist, dragging him off the bed and not noticing when he stumbled. He ran down the stairs screaming, "TWO! TWO COME HERE! WE'VE GOT IT!"

They ran into him outside on the driveway and Six released Five to snag his wrist and drag him into the house where Darlene and Scott were rushing out of their room as they fastened their bathrobes.

"You guys!_ What_ is going _on?_" Darlene hissed, pulling them inside and checking to see if they'd woken the neighbors before shutting the door.

Six paid her no mind and ran over to the couch, pushing Two down onto it and trying to lift his shirt up.

Five grabbed him by the wrist. "Stop. We have to warn him first," he stopped him, staring straight into his eyes.

Six nodded mutely and waited for Five to explain, knowing he'd be able to do it so they understood.

"Okay. Two?" Five started, waiting for Two to nod, signaling his attention. "This has to be done. You'll find out what I mean in a minute. Now brace yourself for the worst pain you'll ever feel." He grinned. "You're going to _love _it." He waited for Two to nod again before tugging his shirt off and gesturing for Six to work his magic.

Six pulled out the talisman and knew from Two's purposefully blank eyes that he recognized it. Wordlessly he positioned it over Two's chest and was about to press the buttons when Darlene stepped up and snatched it out of his hand, dangling it dangerously on its chain. "Don't!" he yelped, reaching his hands out and knocking Five over in the process so he could catch it in case it fell. "We have to! There's no choice!"

"_Not_ until you explain what's going on," Scott frowned, crossing his arms.

"You can't! You _can't_ understand it! It's not for you to know!" Six tried and attempted to snatch the necklace back, but Darlene drew it in close and began to examine it.

"What on Earth _is_ this thing?" she wondered, feeling a strange draw towards it that was negated by a sort of innate fear.

"Give it!" Six urged. "Give it!"

"It's the key to destroying the world, and now we have to use it to save our souls that were us before time began that have been passed on through the Earth's lifetime until they were bound to us by some sort of cult that wanted to recreate the end of time as we know it," Five rushed out and reached his palm out as Darlene dropped the item in surprise. "Six!" he said loudly to catch the boy's attention and tossed it to him. "Do it."

Six skidded to his knees in front of Two and quickly pressed the talisman into his skin before anyone could take it away again. He dialed the code and leaned back as the green glow filled the room, spotlighting the wall behind him.

Two started to seize, his eyes rolling back in his head as he gave himself the same scratches that Five now sported and Six reached out to deactivate the key for him.

He placed the chain over his own neck for safekeeping as Two melted in relief into the couch. "Got it," he mumbled, but only because his mouth was numb. "We can do it. I just need to do it one more time and I'll have it memorized." He reached out for the charm, but Five pushed him back into the cushions again.

"Wait a while. We don't wanna give you a heart attack," he warned and got up on the couch next to him, making sure he was comfortable and handing his shirt back. "I've got the idea, but no specifics."

Five just laid the white cotton over his chest and heaved a sigh as his lungs regulated his blood-oxygen levels with overkill to boot. "And I've got the math with no practical application to tie it to," he said heavily. "We need the other six."

"They're coming," Six breathed, looking past the walls and around the neighborhood, his vision showing him every one of them as they woke and started following the path to them without knowing why. "They can feel it beginning." He grinned manically. "It's going to happen."

"I don't understand-_What_ are you doing? What's this about the world ending?" Scott asked urgently, fear saturating his tone. He'd seen enough proof over the months that Six's experiences were real, and the fact that they seemed to be twisting his mind was not a promising sign.

Just then, Seven walked in, followed by Nine, both of them having no clue as to why they'd walked out of their houses in the middle of the night clothed in only their pyjamas.

"Good. You're here," Six said and gave them a Cheshire Cat grin. "Sit down and take your shirts off."

They looked at him like he was insane. Which he was, but that didn't have any matter at the moment.

"...No?" Nine asked more than stated, but Six was already dragging him physically to the couch and pushing him back onto it so hard that he bounced.

"Five, say it," Six ordered, pointing a waving finger at them and cocking his head.

"Okay, you've been having the dreams, right?" Five asked first.

They looked at him like he was crazy too.

Five sighed and looked at Five while pointing over at the garage next door. "Go get them so we don't have to describe each one?" he requested. "Six, go help." He squatted down in front of the couch as Seven took a seat next to Nine and held out the talisman that Six had handed him before walking out the door. "Now. Do either of you recognize this?"


	14. It's Working

The others watched as Six worked on Five. He'd started with One, who had volunteered. By now he had it down. Using the lens that Two had crafted, cutting prism after prism in it for six months almost constantly, he stared into the talisman connecting Five's mind to his consciousness. It was still agonizing for the one-eyed teen to be exposed to the green omniscience, but he'd been practicing, as had they all. He'd spent by far the most time inside himself over the months, though, as he had been the most apprehensive. They'd known it would take Six a long time to unbind each soul, but it was taking longer and longer on each one. He was up to over an hour after three sessions with Five. It had taken one for One, two for Two, and so on.

Six could feel Five's mind beginning to weaken again and he pulled away from the loose ends he was untwining, sliding his soul all the way out of the talisman he'd ventured through to get inside the green expanse that was Five's mind being filtered through the looking glass.

"Sorry. Sorry..." he mumbled as he held his head. As easy as it was for him so untie the Stitchpunk souls, simply being exposed to Five's-or anyone's-mind was exhausting at best. He'd been resting for a whole day, and sitting in the Stitchpunk world for another, but he couldn't help it; he was running out of everything it took to function. With each binding becoming more and more complicated as the numbers went up, he wasn't faring well. He couldn't tell if they were actually that difficult, or if he was just losing his edge. They were like untangling hundreds of feet of Christmas lights and getting longer each time.

"It's fine, Six," Five said and leaned forward on the bed to rest his head on Six's shoulder. The boy was sitting on the floor, and they were surrounded by Two, Nine, Three, Four, One, and Seven. Only Eight was gone. It wasn't that he didn't care, but he-of all people-couldn't take watching them all in so much pain. One, of course, wasn't going to let anything go down without his supervision, Two was there for moral support, Three and Four were just plain curious, and Nine and Seven seemed to be there in case anything went wrong. How they could help in any way was a mystery, but they would try.

"This is so embarrassing..." Five breathed as he panted, covered in sweat. He knew he'd been squirming and at the very least grunting, if not screaming. But he couldn't help it-this process was painful.

"Not like anyone else was any more dignified," Two assured him. "At least you haven't broken anything yet," he reminded, holding up his cracked wrist.

"True," Five nodded, too sleepy to smile. "I can feel mine getting freer," he mentioned, sitting back a little to look Six in the eye from about two inches away before leaning his water-beaded forehead against his.

"God, I can't believe you two haven't kissed yet," Two muttered as he frowned down at his bandages and picked at them.

"Shut up..." Five panted, his eye closed as he tried not to fall asleep. He knew this was hard on Six, but he wanted to continue as soon as possible. He wanted his soul free. He couldn't give up now. If the pattern was true, it would take two more sessions, and he wanted it over with.

"Should we go again?" Six offered, his own lids having fallen as well.

"You should take a break. Get something to eat and drink," One suggested, sounding much like he was ordering it. "We don't know what will happen if you lose consciousness when you are joined together."

"He's right," Two agreed, the only one who didn't have a problem encouraging the other. Although One had had his worries and apprehensions, he had volunteered to go first should anything go wrong. He didn't trust Six to not make a mistake and he was terrified of pain, but he had done it to save the others just in case. If nothing else, he deserved respect for that. The same respect that Two had always given him. He may be brash and suspicious of everyone, but he always did his best to keep them safe, whether they wanted it or not. For that, Two had always been grateful.

"I think if we have to wait, I'd rather take a nap instead," Five mentioned, but stood anyways. His legs would barely hold him and Nine had to catch him before he collapsed. His entire body was shaking and he felt as if he'd not only run a marathon, but completed every event in the Summer Olympics.

"Maybe we should put the rest off until tomorrow," Seven ventured. "I think Six is out for a while anyways."

"Oh..." Five sighed, his eyes shut as he was walked out the door. The woman was dragging Six along out the door behind him, holding his wrist over her shoulders and his ribs against her side. He was completely gone. The only way to tell he was in the other world instead of passed out dead was because his hand was twitching like he was scribbling with a pen.

They eventually got to the kitchen where the two were set down at the table while Two went about preparing a meal for them. None of the rest had needed to take a break in the middle of their unbindings, and Five was sure he was blushing even redder than his heat-induced flush most certainly was.

"I really hate this," Five moaned, folding his arms over the edge of the table and laying his head faced down on top of them.

"Well, it's certainly not enjoyable for any of us," One grumbled, crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorway, one foot crossed over his ankle with his toe on the floor.

"You got that right," Two nodded, setting some Lucky Charms down before Five. He brought a second bowl over to Six along with a napkin. They'd discovered a few months before that he sometimes went days inside the Stitchpunk world, but he could eat and do simple tasks like go to the bathroom and dress himself if you set him up for them first. Two put the spoon in Six's hand and dipped it into the bowl. The teen's eyes opened and he seemed to barely just be able to make out the dish in front of him. Satisfied that he would get his nourishment, Two turned back to Five and sat him up. "You need to eat," he pushed. "You're going to make yourself sick."

"I feel like I'm gonna throw up," Five moaned.

"Just eat," Seven sighed. "I need to get home by six."

"You can leave now if you want," Five muttered, his eye falling shut again.

"I'm not leaving you like this," the woman sighed. "You know I wouldn't."

"...Thanks," the monocular-visioned boy said gratefully.

"I don't know about you guys, but this really isn't helping me to relax about this. What if Six can't get mine done..." Nine admitted as he thumped down at the table, chin in his hand.

"He can," One said confidently. "Six can do anything he puts his mind to."

That surprised every single one of them, and it showed on their faces.

"That was-...that was a really inspiring thing to say, One. Coming from you. Thank you," the frightened boy breathed.

"Hmph. I only speak the truth," the blonde harrumphed. "You can feel it when he's doing his little thing. He can do it."

"Well, I'm impressed," Two smiled. "The icy-hearted fool _can _be nice," he teased.

"Hmph," was all One returned for a moment. "Like I said: I speak the truth."

"I'm good..." Six muttered, putting down his spoon as he struggled himself back into his intended world. "Good..." He was ready to go back to work.

"No, you're not, Six," Two insisted, exasperated at best. "Now get back in there. I'm not letting you continue for at least twenty-four hours, if not more. I can work on the dolls while you recover."

"But-...but-..." the vertically old-time prison-clad boy persisted.

"_No_." Two was getting a bit fed up with the whole process. "Listen, we can't do anything with them until I have the dolls functioning correctly anyways. It's no use for you to continue now."

"It won't take you two days to complete them," Five piped up, his voice barely audible.

"I'm tired, too!" the weak boy snapped. "This isn't easy on any of us! And who do you think is going to get Six done after you?"

"...I... Sorry, I didn't," Five stuttered, not having given it much thought.

"No, I'm sorry. But...I didn't think this would be so difficult. I was expecting my prism to help more. I should have worked on it harder," Two apologized. "If I could just-...I know if I could redo it, I could make it better."

"We don't have time for that!" One reminded him gruffly. "Something is coming. I know you all can feel it, too!"

He had a point. It may have been unspoken, but their impatience to be in so much pain proved it. Their souls were getting restless. They had been for months since they had given them that initial glimmer of hope for freedom, but it was getting worse the past few weeks.

"I _know_. But seeing Six like this..." Two sighed, looking back at the boy who had fallen again into the blank-eyed stare of distraction. "It feels like we're taking advantage of him. Obviously we must be capable of doing what he does; one of us has to unbind him after all. It doesn't feel right forcing him to do all this."

"We have no choice. He would never allow us to take over for him," Seven reminded them all. "This is his part to contribute. And if you think you feel bad, think about us. We've barely been able to do anything at all. We contributed our knowledge and that was it. But you all did that, too."

"Your part is yet to come," One stated confidently. "Nine will be the one to put the souls in the dolls. You will have to use your skills to fight whatever is coming. Three and Four will have to figure out _what_ is coming."

"How do you know that?" Nine asked curiously.

"Because you can do puzzles in seconds that would take us hours. You're the only logical one to fit them all back together," One explained. "Whatever is coming is big, and Seven has the fighting skills and strength. And we have no idea what it is, so Three and Four will have to figure that out with their research. It's only logical," he elaborated for them. "Really, it's simple to figure out."

"You've really been worrying, haven't you..." Seven realized tenderly. Through his rough exterior, he really was looking out for them.

"I've been _thinking_ is all. Unlike the rest of you. We've had six months to figure this out. You all ran off and hid from it, but _I've_ been working," the blonde preened. Seven scoffed.

"We never hid from it. We just have lives other than paying attention to you and following orders all the time," she huffed.

"Yes, well, it would do you some good to listen to me once in a while. Obviously my intellect is superior," One stabbed. Seven just glared at him and crossed her arms.

"Right. You're not even worth fighting with," she dismissed and turned away. "Listen, guys, I need to get home. My brother is going to be home soon and I need to be there to take care of him," she excused.

"Go on. We won't continue today at _least_," the bald boy allowed needlessly. He ignored Five's sigh of disappointment and resign. "We don't want Six injuring himself for this after all." He felt triumph when he saw Five's abashed blush.

The room cleared out, Seven and Nine taking their older friends out to walk them home first, and One leaving to go be superior to Eight for a while since he hadn't gotten his fix of superiority with them.

Two sighed and leaned back in his chair as the door shut, arm over the back and head tipped toward the ceiling. "I think I'll stay here tonight," he declared.

"Why?" Five asked simply.

"To make sure you two don't do anything stupid like attempt continuation alone," he frowned. He looked over and saw Five's eye widen. The teen must not have even realized they could have done that. Two kicked himself for bringing it up. Five really must have been tired to not even have thought of it.

"You can sleep in my bed," Five offered.

"I'm not kicking you off your own mattress with you in the state you are," Two frowned.

"I never said you were sleeping alone," Five smirked. He didn't like the contemplative look Two got at that statement.

"I don't want you rolling over on my arm. I'll take the cot," he said too casually for his best friend's liking.

"But then you'd be kicking Six out of _his_ bed," Five frowned.

"No, I'd be kicking him _into_ yours," Two grinned slyly. "Come on. You can share with me, you can share with him, right? Or were you hoping for a little nookie from dear, ol' Two?"

"Shut up," Five sighed his usual reply. "I really don't understand this obsession of yours, you know."

"And I don't understand this avoidance of _yours_," Two shot back gently.

"Please. He doesn't even notice me like that," Five dismissed, knowing Six was deep into the other world and couldn't hear their embarrassing conversation. It was the first time he'd actually confronted Two over it.

"Trust me. He would if you made the first move. He's just oblivious." Two sighed heavily and rolled his eyes up to the heavens. "But you're too chickenshit to do anything about it."

"I _am not_," Five glared. "There just hasn't been an opportunity yet."

"There are dozens every day," Two countered. "You sleep in the same room, for God's sakes."

"It's not like that. He's got all this shit going on in his head. I can't add to it. It wouldn't be fair," Five persisted.

"...It would make him happy," Two told him quietly, his voice losing its teasing edge.

Five didn't reply to that.


End file.
